please advise charge nurses

Nurses General Nursing

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My husband is a new nurse. He has been on a medsurg unit for less than 6 months. He has already been asked to assume charge nurse role, and feel unprepared to do so. He has had no training or orientation to charge. His organization is short staffed and is just looking for a warm body to fill this spot. We feel that this is unsafe to everyone involved. Can he reasonably refuse this assignment? Also worried about retaliatory actions by management. please advise. thanks,

Dana and Harlan

Thanks guys,

We appreciate all your responses.

Dana and Harlan

So, let's see. The hospital staffing gets to fill a much needed roll - score for them. Your husband is put into an unfair, stressful situation in which he's grossly underprepared and his license will be in jeopardy. All of this during his first year of his career. Sounds like a fair deal to me! (Can you sense the sarcasm?)

He's still trying to learn the ropes of being a nurse himself, and they expect him to put his license on the line for others? At my hospital, no one is considered to start training for charge until they have 2 yrs under their belt. That's totally unfair to expect a new grad to take on that responsibility.

In order to protect himself, he should refuse it. It's not a "promotion" - it's the hospital's selfish way of fulfilling their need, at the possible expense of your husband's career. I wouldn't even want to work at that hospital. It's a red flag that they can't find anyone with experience who wants to be charge.

Right on,

I totally agree with you, anne74. I worked for this company in my first year of nursing and they did the same thing to me. It was a big part of why I left. Yesterday when my DH went to work they once again told him that he would be charging that shift. He refused and people were shifted around by staffing to fill the needs. Why didn't staffing just do this in the first place? He has e-mailed his supervisor to say that he would not be charging and to tell staffing to stop placing him in this position. I guess we'll see what happens tonight and what is to happen with the supervisor later.

Specializes in Diabetes ED, (CDE), CCU, Pulmonary/HIV.

All that said, it's only been six months and he indeed might not be ready. What is the difference between charge and what he's doing now. Often it's just merely making assignments, especially if the LPNs are independent like they are here in Florida.

Tweety, I work in Florida too (Miami). Here the RN must do the assessment, IV push drugs, and hang blood. When I was still working as a floor nurse, the RN split the assignment with the LPN. Many RNs just split the number of pts in half by room numbers. However, I was not comfortable with that kind of split (unless I was working with the 30-year veteran LPN). If we had 12 pts, I would take 5 most acute & give LPN 7 pts with lower accuity. In my opinion, the RN is paid more for a reason. If I just split the rooms in half, and did not work in conjunction with the LPN, s/he should be paid same as RN. The responsibilities are different.

Specializes in All ICU, TBI, trauma, etc..

Sure take the job, not. I was asked after being on the floor for one year and refused saying I felt I did not have the experience. Another nurse was also asked and took the job (same experience). I saw codes where the charge was supposed to take charge and I saw a pt die because it was not handled correctly. It wasn't until after the code I realized why. Experience is needed and the only reason we are doing what we are doing is for the pt and safety first. If not safety I move on fast.

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