Will I get fired?????

[Furoffire]

I've been a good nurse for a long time but one year old in this new dept. Several days ago I took care of a DNR dementia patient that had runs of A-Fib. She was in a room that had a hard wire and it was. The blood pressure cuff remained on her too my entire shift but I did not let it cycle becasue she would scream her head off when the BP was taking, it would get tight, so I manually did them (I would push the start button each time) and comforted her, it worked. Well some way some how at the end of shift she had another run of rapid A-Fib, I was in an isolation room trying to keep a large man from falling out of bed and another nurse responded by calling the doctor and dealing with. Her BP became questionable and I showed the frequent VS sheet to the charge in report and he got curious, walked up to the monitor and several of the BP's that presented themselve on the monitor that I wrote down (I monitored her HR frequently and wrote them down along with the manual BP's I took plus a couple that were on the monitor.........although I said I was taking manual ones it was a crazy day and I guess I just did not think it through and just wrote down what I saw). Well the charge nurse made a big issue and asked if I basically made the BP's up BECAUSE several were not in the memory. Now how can that be, I don't know but I feel like my integrity and possible job may be on the line!!!!!!!!!!!! My director is wanting to meet with me and bring in a Union Rep.........does that mean my goose it cooked? I am so nervous and scared, if its not in the memory than it looks like I made them up? I guess they do not suspect the machine might be skipping or whatever? And what does a "wine garden right" or something to that nature mean? You know I could of lied nipped the whole thing in the bud by saying I did actual manual BP's with the rolling old fashioned things we still have on the unit.................BUT I told the truth but why am I being put through this??? I could go on and on, I have never been down this road before and not sure why I am all worked up even though I am innocent. Kitty Might Be Gone But Than What, who will hire a dishonest nurse if they will not believe, I have a squeaky clean record. Anybody ever have this happen to them?

[TazziRN, RN]

The manager may be insisting the rep be there to protect herself, so that YOU cannot later say that you were treated unfairly. That just occured to me.

[Furoffire]

I hope that is all it is. She has had a reputation of yelling and getting out of control with others. She has since mellowed out, but good point, in that she will be protecting herself. this might be too big and she already knows herself better. Good hopefull insight :)

[jamminworld]

I was repremanded just the other week for not having appropriate paper work completed on a surgical patient of mine. I was 100% positive I had done it but that didnt matter because the dayshift nurse that had accused me was one of thier favorites (yes extremely childish and unprofessional.) Well the pt happened to still be in our unit so I pulled the chart and the very first pages were all the paperwork that I had supposedly not done. My very ledgible signature was at the bottom of each. I showed it to them and not so much as a sorry was said. I have since placed an application elsewhere. I refuse to work where I am falsely accused. Hope everything turns out well with you. There is a nursing shortage and tons of hospitals would be more than happy to have a good experienced nurse. Good Luck

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

I refuse to work where I am falsely accused.

Good point, jammin.

[sissiesmama, ASN, RN]

Good point, jammin.

I AGREE COMPLETELY!!! Angie and jammin both -- that is the big thing with me. I have NO desire to work for someone who doesn't trust me or always is pointing the finger at me, no matter what it is.

Anne, RNC

[Furoffire]

The Union Rep who was wonderful, met w/ me and the director. The print off of VS showed like I just two done. Well the rep noticed that the print out was done in hourly fragments and she said something about if whoever printed it should of expanded the time, you zoom in and out (she did a demo for me) and its amazing how all these #'s coming alive. So the rep said I have nothing to worry about and it the director tries to get me to sign some disclinary form, DO NOT but get ahold of the rep. She will file a greivnace. Now my Union makes all the sense in the world to me and I encourage all of you to support them if you have one.

I don't know why the charge nurse has taken such a negetive interest in me, of course they are not Union, this guy is a new grad and I think power has gone to his head.

I wish it were that simple to just find another hospital, I live out in the boonies of the great Northwest and if you have one hospital within a reasonale drive time you are lucky. Many of us feel frustrated but we have mortages to pay etc.

Well keep the prayers going, I know things could be a lot worse but get the devil off my back : )

[emmycRN]

In our ER, all our monitors are hardwired. Sometimes you can't see stuff in memory unless you decrease the time increment and some of them STILL won't show up on the memory. Drives me batty.

Often, I'll run an EKG from the monitor, which shows the current HR, and that HR (and nothing near it) is in memory on the trends.

These machines are NOT failsafe. We were told that printed trend reports were NOT to be part of the chart. That our nursing documentation - what WE document - is the be-all and end-all of what happened with a patient, because machines are fallable.

Just be honest in the meeting, that's all you can do. If you DO lose your job, and I pray you don't, make sure you have copies of all your good evals from years past, so you can show other employers your *reputation* as opposed to some one-off incident. Any decent HR person is well aware that machines make mistakes.

That said, is there any other reason these folks might be frowning on you? Could they be making this a big issue for other reasons?

Good luck! I'll be rooting for you!

Same with our monitors. If you adjust the time increment you will get additional readings. If the monitor is set for like every hour, you will only see readings for each hour on the report.