So the other day I'm in a tiff with radiology because they want me to transport a patient that (per policy and per good nursing judgement) I'm not required to accompany and I can't accomodate them because well, I have other patients that I need to attend to. So they call my charge nurse who tells me that we all have to work together and put the patient first. Well if they really wanted to put the patient first, as in my other less stable patients, then they wouldn't insist on me leaving my other less stable patients to accompany a perfectly stable patient. Heck, there's no reason this couldn't have been done bedside, so if THEY truly wanted to put the patient first, they'd bring themselves on up to my floor and do it at the bedside.
I'm just soooo tired of everytime I stick up for myself, I'm accused of not putting the patient first. But other departments don't fully staff on weekends, because the patient can wait until Monday. We do labs at 4am for the MD's convenience, even though it wakes up the patients. I don't have a medication, pharmacy expects me to run halfway across the hospital for it, because most of them are at lunch. After I've searched all the boxes THEY might have accidently put it in. Heck, housekeeping won't even clean the IV poles. But the other departments, and even our fellow nurses, expect us to drop everything in a split second for the convenience of another department in the name of the patient being first. And if we dare say, "Hey, that other department could do x,y,z instead of me dropping everything, ignoring my other patients, and leaving an hour late, then getting called to the principal's office for my incremental overtime" then we as nurses aren't being team players. But do you see the other departments being team players on the weekend? Nope, they aren't there. Are they being team players at 7pm when we want to go home? Nope, they left on time at 5pm.
If nobody else wants to do it, it's the nurse's job. Not "if nobody else CAN do it." Not "if nobody else is QUALIFIED to do it." Plain, flat out, if nobody else WANTS to do it. And we as nurses are expected to suck it up in the name of the patient first. Because if we don't do it, the patient suffers. How about, "If housekeeping/radiology/respiratory/MD/pharmacy/customerservice/cafeteria/whoever doesn't do it, the patient suffers"???????? Why not lay the guilt trip on someone other than nursing for a change???
