This may end up being a very long, post, but I will attempt to keep it as short as possible. I am an RN working nights at a teaching hospital, on the rehab unit. I spent about a year at a different hospital, and about a year and a half on a surgical floor before I came to rehab. So I have about four years of experience right now. I work with a man who was an RT for twenty years, went back to school and has been an RN for a little over a year. The problems began when we had a disagreement over an issue. He decided to take the issue to our manager, who agreed with him, and I agreed to comply with her decision in the matter. However, since then, he has treated me with hostility and contempt. He refuses to acknowledge me when I speak to him, he leaves me stranded in patients rooms when I need help, he has made blatantly racial comments in front of the nurses' stations, he has ridiculed other patients' languages...
Once, when I was charge, he had conveniently managed to snag three patients who had a patient safety assistant in the room with them (meaning all he had to worry about was passing meds and charting--no turning, toileting, etc.), and one of those was an RN, which meant he really only had THREE patients. I wanted to redistribute the patient load to make it more equitable, since the rest of us were going to be required to take five patients. He refused, saying, "No--I'm keeping my patients." I told him that it wasn't fair for the rest of us to all have five heavy patients, and he said too bad, I'm keeping my patients. In addition, he has chased me around the report room, demanding an answer to a ridiculous question, and wouldn't leave me alone until someone else (a day shift RN) stepped in front of him. He doesn't do some of the things the MDs order--he saw an order for a heparin drip to be started at 0500 and stated "That sounds like something for day shift", he had a patient who was NPO and the NA told him the patient's blood sugar was 69 and she's NPO and he said "too bad--she's getting orange juice", he had a patient who was supposed to have a tacrolimus draw at six--our manager sent us an email and posted signs everywhere that tacrolimus levels were now RN draws--and he filled out a sheet for lab to draw it. The pt. had a PICC line and the lab person who draws from PICCs doesn't hit our floor till seven or seven-thirty. He has told other staff members that I "hide in the bathroom" to "get away from the call lights", that my "patient could be dead" and I wouldn't write anything on our shift report sheet. In addition to all of the slanderous things he says about me, he spends most of his shift tellling "dumb blonde" jokes and complaining about nearly everyone on our unit--not to mention ancillary staff and management. Everyone is stupid, no one knows what they're doing--according to him. He follows only the rules he wants to follow--and he makes sure that all of his little cronies follow in his footsteps.
I finally got fed up with all of it--especially after I was basically ABANDONED in a pt. room, and took the matter up with employee labor relations. That was a month ago, and I haven't heard anything from them. Whad DID happen however, is that I got an email in MY mailbox saying that I have to report to a PRE-DISCIPLINARY meeting on Friday morning regarding my "frequent breaks" and my lack of attention to call lights. Now, I sit right at the nurses' station and answer every call light as soon as it starts ringing, because I am one of those paranoid people who is just absolutely convinced that the patient on the other end is going to say something like "I fell out of bed", or "I can't feel one side of my face", or "my chest hurts really bad and I can't breathe". Conversely, the nurse I formally complained about since in a different area, surrounded by his gaggle of worshippers, and only pays attention to his patients' call lights. So, yes, I know where this came from. And I know it's all horse*#$@. But I don't know what I should do here. I will have union rep with me, but I am wondering if I am going to need a lawyer. Should I just start looking for a new job? I mean, it's obvious that the situation is not going to change. To tell the truth, I'm ready to just do something else entirely. If it weren't for my BIG HONKING MORTGAGE I'd just give them my two weeks and say the hell with it. I'm really fed up with this profession and with the way certain people can get away with everything and bully people around. I'm just tired of it all.
