Was I wrong to refuse to help?

Bipley · Dec 22, 2005

...when I'm sick, I need someone with excellent nursing skills, and not setting that as priority number one is ridiculous. Having a firm grip on reality and telling it like it is are not character flaws that require therapy.

While I agree with you I also have to say something (and I'm speaking for myself ONLY, I do not know CotJockey so I have NO opinion either way).

I swear the only reason I HAVE a body is so that something is following my mouth around to accept the consequences of my mouth. There is no other answer.

jschut, BSN, RN · Dec 22, 2005

I think what the OP did was completely in line, and I wish her the best of luck....

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Dec 22, 2005

what is "un-tactful" about telling a former colleague that she should consult another rn or call her nurse manager?

i'd have to answer this question by replying that is was the way it was said along with the added comment about not working there any more and that she was not going to do her work for her. there's nicer, tactful ways to say that. it did aggravate the other person to start yelling, did it not? perhaps that was an intentional motive behind the comment, perhaps not.

and, of course, getting fired (or asked to leave) without any previous discussion, attempts to help you change, etc is not appropriate.

it is totally acceptable in the working world. why would an employee be allowed to quit any time they want because they don't want to work somewhere anymore and the work place not be able to have the same privilege? as a manager i have heard of this happening before. a company will do this when they are giving the employee a break and not put a forced termination on their personnel record. they would find legitimate reasons to terminate the employee, believe me, it's not hard to do when termination is the goal. often these requests come with a severance offer to get the employee out of the door. i think that anytime this happens to an employee they should count their lucky stars they weren't fired. and, yes, you can fire someone for their behavior and for failure to give good customer service. it merely requires documentation of incidents.

and what has become of any system that has deteriorated to the point where being nice is valued more than being competent scary.

a good majority of healthcare facilities want their employees delivering service "with a smile" to both patients and other employees. it's because they are in competition with other healthcare facilities for patients. no patients, no income; no patients, no work; no work, no jobs for healthcare personnel; no work, no income=a facility that has to close it's doors. it is very hard for a facility to overcome negative comments about the customer service they give because it gets passed around like lightening in the community by word of mouth from citizen to citizen. no facility wants the community to be saying, "i wouldn't take my dog there" about them. customer service in healthcare is not a new concept. it's been around a long time.

grimmy, RN · Dec 24, 2005

a couple of the posts here bothered me. i keep thinking, if the op were a male nurse, would they be labeled as "catty" or "pretty nasty", just because they stood up for themselves and didn't take crap from a former co-worker? i could be mistaken, but it seems that (most) men don't get so caught up in all that drama. they let someone know when they're out of line and don't let it upset them if the other person gets their feelings hurt.

male or female, there was another way to say "i'm not going to do your job." i think there is no doubt that the op was well-within her rights not to get involved. it was the most appropriate thing to have done. the "i'm not going to do your job" comment is probably what pushed the ed nurse into complaining. yes, cotjockey mentioned a certain "pity-pot" and i'm sure i would have been feeling some resentment, too. next time (hindsight is 20-20), say something that gets your point across without being "quoteable." for instance, "sorry, but i'm working in the capacity of an emt - you know, the well-trained-monkey role. so, reading this tape is out of my scope of practice." and, if ed rn calls me a f****** b****, then i would write her up in a jiffy.

LydiaNN · Dec 24, 2005

I just don't think there's a thing wrong with saying it exactly the way it was said. The nurse was, in fact, asking the OP to do her job for her. It seems to me that this nurse was pretty oblivious to why this was inappropriate, and only a blunt response would work in terms of enlightening her. And I don't care how much I hurt someone's feelings, they call me a name like that and you better believe I'm going to write them up.

steelcityrn, RN · Dec 24, 2005

one would have probably had to be there........

tmd76 · Dec 24, 2005

You wanna know the truth..I think that nurse in the ER was trying to be "catty" by asking you to read that strip..I am sure she was well aware you did not work there anymore...her motive was probably to rub it in or something. I would've shown her catty and let the MD in charge know that she was asking you to read strips for her. She should know how to read that strip, if not..the ER might be a bad place for her.

Keysnurse2008 · Dec 24, 2005

You did nothing wrong.In fact you did the legally "right" thing.Lets say you did interpret it for her.And then the pt went bad...she'd rope you in to cover her A**.Pointing the finger at you ...meekly saying ..."he told me it was fine".Poor ...lil thing...Tell her next time...it is an assumption of liability you are not willing to take...and that if she cant even reconize which way a PQRST should be deflecting NORMALLY...and compare it to her patients ekg....and if its deflecting the wrong way or has prolonged intervals or abnormal rates then "YOU ARE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT HER"....and that possibly she should maybe consider taking some time off to gain some insight on what "normal" and abnormal" looks like on a ekg.Ya know....thats the trouble with all these patients...they all have beating hearts..............well...............most of "em anyway.lol.You were in the right esp in regards to liability issues.

live4today, RN · Dec 24, 2005

I don't think you did anything wrong in not helping the nurse with her strip. It's her responsibility to know what she's looking at. If she's unsure she should go to a coworker, not someone who does not work there.
When I worked ED we had a lot of staff who also worked EMS. It never once ocurred to any of us to ask our staff members to come work when they were on EMS duty, no matter how swamped we were.
When you are working EMS, that's your role and responsibility. You are not on the hospital's clock at that time. I doubt you'd even be covered if something went wrong and you were doing the staff's work when you were not clocked in as staff.
I know I put this all badly, but I think you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

I totally agree..........and the nurse who used foul language should be written up for conducting herself in a nonprofessional manner in a professional setting. SHE should be the one with her job on the line...........IMO anyway.

kadokin, ASN, RN · Dec 24, 2005

This is sort of long, so please forgive me in advance!
I was recently asked to resign from my job...not fired, but asked to resign. My manager felt that I am "not a good fit for the team" and that I don't have enough caring or compassion to make a good nurse. She said that clinically, I am outstanding, but that I am "really just not a nice person" and that I was "dragging down the entire team." This was the first I had heard about any of this. I have probably had 15 phone calls from coworkers askign what happened and expressing how surprised they were when they heard...they could be sincere or just trying to say something to make me feel better...I don't know.
To get to the point of my post...I am good at interpreting EKG strips...not an expert by any means, but I know what I am doing...and I have a lot of practice. More often than not when I was working, doing the interpretation on EKG strips was one of my assignments. This morning at about 0200, the ambulance brought a patient to the ER (I am a volunteer paramedic). As we were finishing paperwork, one of the nurses from the floor brought a strip to the ER and aksed me what I thought...this was a nurse that I have a bit of a history with...we had a personality conflict from day one. More than once when I was working she would argue with me about what the EKG strips were showing...most of the time I was right and she was wrong (at least according to the doctor). Anyway, I have a lot of resentment about my termination and I really have no desire to help any of the nurses who work there...especially her. The strip looked pretty benign to me, so I told her that I thought she should either consult another RN or call her nurse manager at home if she had any doubts. I added that I do not work there any more and that I will nto do her work for her. If I had seen anything on the strip that looked even a little abnormal, I would have told her...no matter how much I don't like her, I wouldn't put a patient in jeopardy because I am still on a pity potty. She called me a lazy f****** b**** and told me she was going to report me to my EMS captain....I gave her the captain's name and phone number.
My former nurse manger called me this morning and wanted to know why I refused to help. She said that if something would have gone wrong with the patient that I could have been held partially responsible. I told her that I don't work for her any more and that any problems need to be addressed with one of my superior officers. I also said that if I saw anything wrong on the strip I would have said so.
I know it really would have been better for me to just work the strip for her...I know that I still need to get along with the people at the hospital since our rescue service takes so many patients there. But...I also know that she wouldn't have even thought of asking one of the other medics to interpret the strip...she thinks paramedics are just well trained monkeys...she has said so more than once.
When I worked there, I had frequent conflicts about my role when I was there with EMS. Personally, I felt that if I was with EMS, I was only with EMS...I shouldn't have been asked to do anything that other EMTs were not asked to do. I was often asked to stay for a few hours to help the floor get caught up, clean to clean rooms in the ER, go to central supply and get things they were out of, put orders in the computer, page doctors, etc...it got to be pretty frustrating. I was told in no uncertain terms that when I was working I was NOT to assist EMS with "EMS things" like cleaning their backboards, getting equipment for them to restock their ambulance, or helping them when they were confused on the new computer charting system.
So...my rescue captain told me not to worry about it and is going to talk to the hospital to make sure the nurses no longer expect the things from me that they expected when I was staff. She is also going to make sure that management is aware that if they have a problem with me that they take it to her or the chief and not to take it directly to me.
I finally got over being nervous about going into the hospital for anything...and now this. I am really frustrated about being told that I am not a "good fit" any more, yet being expected to help when they need a second opinion.
I really don't know what the point of this point is...I guess I am just blowing off steam...thaks for reading.

:chuckle "really just not a nice person", yet you were the one who was called an fnb? What's up w/that?:chuckle

kadokin, ASN, RN · Dec 24, 2005

The most disturbing piece of this to me is the manager. It's unprofessional to tell someone they are "just not a nice person." Your personality has nothing to do with anything. Your specific behavior is what's relevant. And I don't really see how you can be clinically outstanding and be a total disaster as a coworker, or not care about your patients. You can't be effective clinically unless you can work with your team.
And calling you about the EMS thing sounds very manipulative. Like she was trying to dump responsibility on you for something you had no connection to. Do you and she have interpersonal issues? It kind of sounds like that - that for whatever reason she just doesn't like you and is doing weird stuff to get at you. In any case, her boundaries are blurred and I'd hate to work on her floor.
And, of course, getting fired (or asked to leave) without any previous discussion, attempts to help you change, etc is not appropriate. One thing that changed for the better when my old facility unionized was that you needed a paper trail to fire someone, you couldn't just wake up one day and say "I'd like to get rid of XXX today."

Agree. WHY are there so many dysfuntional nurse managers out there? Here's my theory (if anyone cares):

-the job is too big for one person

-there are WAY too many issues to deal w/beyond the clinical, such as the toxic environments that erupt from low staffing, general disrespect for nurses, and pressure from higher up to do more w/less

-since the job really IS too big for one person a nurse manager's consiglieri/"informers" tend to be people w/too much time on their hands b/c they are motivated by their own greed/ego needs above the needs of their pts/co-workers. Those that truly have something positive to contribute, don't get much of a chance b/c they are too busy doing their own work and the work of those who spend their days looking for things to report to the manager.

There, I said it. :nurse:

kadokin, ASN, RN · Dec 24, 2005

It is dangerous to determine significance of EKG's "by committee". Best to let MD make the decision anyway, IMHO.

Hello! That's what the md is getting paid for, isn't it?