Work frustration poll - page 5

1. 
   Apr 24, '05

   Joined: Jan '99; Posts: 735; Likes: 216

   Quote from gizelda

   I am so sick and tired of having to fight with nursing supervisors over nursing patient ratios .FOR THE LAST TIME THEY AREN'T NUMBERS THEY ARE PEOPLE (administration do you here me?) I am in the middle of a grievance right now because a "nursing supervisor" told me she was ASHAMED of me for refusing an er admit. The er was trying to admit a etoh who received allot of sedation and still wasn't down, no Foley and 1 puny little #22 in his wrist.In the middle of report the nurse states"And I have to call you back because he just fell on the floor" In the mean time another patient loses his airway and is requiring an emergent bronch he was also a crazy big man who was requiring the 4 nurses on that shift to care for him,so now he cant breath and he's really nuts and continues to be a WWF wrestler.another patient is intubated on 2 pressors. one other is fresh post op intubated pacer placed. So ok im thinking 3 night nurses coming on in 40 minutes.One of them has under a year icu experience ,one is a travel nurse, no ancillary staff ,because that never happens to us.so Mr. etoh will be insane ,Mr. wwf just lost his airway because he was suctioned down his new trachea too aggressively is being bagged, and we can just forget about the other 3 patients because these rns coming on will be up to their teeth in 2 combat situations.But hey the supervisor sees them as being able to take 6 patients 3 nurses 6 patients and by the way who is going to be the code nurse? So I said NO I want the drunk more stable before we admit him and I want to know what you can send for ancillary help. NOONE was the answer and "I just assessed that pt in the er and he was asleep was the other response. And we all know how the sleeping etoh goes right?He is either playing possum or he will require intubation from all the valium haldol and ativan he received thru his puny little 22 in his wrist with a limb restraint over it. I stated no I will not take him now. It will be shift change and their is an emergent situation on the unit it would be unsafe to send up the ETOHer under these circumstances with no plan in place, so up comes the SUP .She's ashamed of me and so ,on And here comes the ETOH on a stretcher And aren't we all just bleeping bleepy bleeped bleeps are the words from the sleeping babe as he is spiting and kicking and now has no puny #22 in his wrist anymore.And here's comes the night shift followed by the pulmonigist to do the bronch and med HO. {we have no ICU doc) AND shes ashamed of me. Whatever. It gets better. Yesterday I went to MRI\MRA ,CT, hida, Vascular Ultrasound with my patient (all day event) I was also the charge nurse.I transferred one of my patients to step down, ,assisted another nurse in cardioversion,verified that the travel er nurse they assigned to us was not cut out for the unit(pt vomiting ,leaves him ,RT comes to get me to help,then comes in room and demands it is time to put him back on bipap ok. so I go to nurse manager explain my findings explain that I will be off floor most of day with my patient and she needs to step in. she does. well now its 5pm ,I am at hida, and the unit calls to tell me I have to take an ER admission. I hang up and call nursing supervisor. I said do you know where I am? she states Ya off the floor. you have a half hour and you have to take report. I am only 45 minus into scan. And I still need to go to ultrasound. I said I cant take a patient I am not there. WELL the numbers say and I am the one nurse with one patient blah blah blah!!!! So It is always a fight. Im tired.Something has to give.

   
   OMG, they are lucky you are still working there. First of all what do you state regs say about the ratio of nurses/ICU patients??? IS it 2:1 or 3:1? Do those regs say also that the hospital must at all times be able to supply the right ratio for the right acuity????
   From there we all know that as ICU nurses our specialty organization is the AACN which does NOT advocate 3:1 ratios but 2:1. What does your leadership think about that?
   Where was your Head nurse or Director??? Where is your backup if YOU are off the floor like you were??
   
   Lee RN
2. 
   May 7, '05

   Occupation: Student Nurse Extern, Full-time Student Joined: May '05; Posts: 8

   I must say I am mostly irritated by the ignorant, lazy co-workers I occasionally have to deal with. You can't get irritated by a patient, come on! You are taking care of a sick person, outside of their comfort zone! Cut them some slack! I will agree that family can be a problem to deal with, but be nice, smile, and be honest with them, and typically you won't have any problems.
3. 
   May 11, '05

   Occupation: LPN Joined: Nov '01; Posts: 191; Likes: 7

   It has to be family members for me...Sometimes I feel like I am taking better care of the families then the pt. What really gets me is when a family calls for this or that and then gives me "I have been on hold for five minutes!!" when I finally get to the phone. I mean what do they think I am doing anyways?
4. 
   May 11, '05

   Joined: Aug '04; Posts: 9,279; Likes: 4,301

   Wow, where do these threads come from? This one's from 2002~
   
   
   Anyhow, staffing would be my biggest issue. I would far prefer to work with about 6 patients all night than 7 or 8. Or once in awhile, 9 or 10. Too crazy and stressful.
5. 
   May 11, '05

   Joined: Sep '03; Posts: 2,375; Likes: 2,862

   Some families are completely insane, but part of our job is dealing with difficult people so I consider it one more challenge.
   
   What irritates me the most is not being given the means to complete my job; that is, lack of essential supplies. Who knew that in an NICU/Special Care Nursery the patients would need such silly things such as bottles, nipples and diapers. There is no reason to run out of these EVERY Sunday night. It wouldn't hurt to keep an extra case or two of those things around, they don't spoil easily you know!
6. 
   May 11, '05

   Occupation: healing from cancer and spinal injury, unable to work :( Specialty: rehab; med/surg; l&d; peds/home care ; From: US ; Joined: Jul '04; Posts: 595; Likes: 118

   well, i'd also like to vote for all of the above!
   
   the admin, who lacks all common sense. every week gives us five new forms to check off on: med pass time audit, compression hose stocking audit, fridge audit every shift, sensor alarm audits, MAR completion audit (we have to check the entire MAR for previous shifts initials), etc. the admin who bring in patients we are not equipped to care. lack of supplies, lack of staffing.
   co-workers, who like to back-stab, gossip, talk on the phone, and basically anything-but-doing-the-orders-and-admissions that are piling up. "who cares, we'll leave it for midnights. so-and-so doesn't do anything all night anyway!" is the answer i get if i ask for help. and then those same co-workers who smile when so-and-so comes in and talks like they are best friends, then proceeds to say what a horrible night it is and had to leave a mess. co-workers who write each other up for every petty thing, when it could be resolved without incident. co-workers who accuse of me not passing my meds, just because i happen to do it faster than they do. co-workers who think zaroxolyn is an antibiotic, and write me up for not initiating care plan on particular pt. :uhoh21: and these same co-workers who kiss up to management and are excellent at keeping themselves out of trouble. :angryfire
   CNA's who don't care, don't want to work, talk back to the nurses, decide to talk on their phones in a pt's room during care. CNA's who are then written up, and still have jobs months and months later.
   families can be a pain, but lately they are few and far between thank goodness. but i still remember the ones who come into the nursing office while you're on the phone with doc/lab/pharmacy and discussing pt info, and hang around, regardless of whether you ask them to wait in their loved one's room and you'll be there ASAP. families who could care less you're coding a pt across the hall, their mom wants coffee and NOW! on a good day, theres only two nurses for 20 pts, and maybe one CNA.
   whew! that's a lot of stuff to be irritated by, and it sure does wear one out after experiencing it day after day. all i can say is, i used to love my job. oh well, i still love my patients!
7. 
   May 27, '05

   Occupation: cna/cmt Joined: May '05; Posts: 75

   hmmm i was just wondering skin care d/t rushing and "carelessness" could that be b/c they have about six call lights going off, 2-3 alarms going off and trying to get jane doe dressed and up in time to get her supper or whatever it may be. As for the radio station we know as cna's that we are not to turn the station to hip hop or rap for most pt's espically the elderly would not prefer or understand that. As for teeth have ya given it a thought that maybe that resdient was uncooperative,combative and didnt wish to have there false teeth crammed in there mouth. I know there are bad cna's out there just as there are bad nurses out there. But please just remember nobody is perfect i know you forget some things here and there as do they. But sometimes instead of jumping down there throat mearly asking why didnt you put jane's teeth in would be a better approach. God bless Tiffany
8. 
   May 27, '05

   Joined: Jun '02; Posts: 14,165; Likes: 59,214

   Quote from deespoohbear

   the families get my vote!!! some of them are just plain, freaking nuts...
   
   ...

   and stupid!
   
   i gotta vote for the families, too. i wonder what the stats would look like if you separated out familes from the patients!
   
   in nearly 3 decades of nursing, i've seen families hit, kick, punch spit on and shoot nurses. (i'm not kidding -- my friend bob got shot in the a$$.) one of my patients' husband took the nurse hostage in a dv dispute -- he wanted to finish off the job he started on his wife, but we'd moved her . . . that ended well for the nurse. i'm not sure what happened to the patient! i've been tackled (thank god for alert prison guards!) to protect me from a visitor with a home-made machete down his oversized pants. a colleauge of mine had a german shepard "service dog" sicced on him by a visitor who claimed dad didn't get enough "personal attention" from that "nice looking young lady" and too much attention from "that ****** there." the dog didn't bite him, but did keep him cornered in the patient bathroom until someone came to his rescue! and one particularly endearing gentleman threatened the entire staff with a 9mm hand gun because he wasn't sure his wife was recieving the best possible care. (management brushed that one off, claiming that "he's from montana, and everyone carries a gun there.") he did get arrested, but was out of jail 6 hours later.
   
   one night when i had 15 hematology patients, one of which was coding and another of which was having an incompatible blood transfusion i refused to fetch a glass of orange juice for an able-bodied family member who was spending the night. the family pitched a fit -- but what was i supposed to do? ignore the abcs on my critically ill patients? the family called the paging operator to page a "real nurse" to the room to fetch the oj. management sided with the family . . . that's another pet peeve, but if the families weren't so unreasonable, they wouldn't have involved management over such a silly complaint.
   
   my husband got a needle stick from an hiv+, hep c + patient -- he was drawing blood from her, she screamed and her husband decked mine while he was trying to draw the blood. this happened early in our marriage during the small window of opportunity we might have had for conceiving a child . . . so much for us having a child of our own. by the time he was cleared for the hiv, it was too late. if we enforced our own visiting hours and stopped catering to ridiculous requests from family, our jobs would be a whole lot easier!
   
   
9. 
   Jun 20, '05

   Occupation: assisted living Joined: May '05; Posts: 31

   Quote from lynn1967

   Management-administration has to come in first. A while back, my DON came up to me and talked about how we "have to have a positive attitude around the new nurses so they will stay." He stated that "some of the nurses who are orienting the new ones have a bad attitude." Well--I was the only one who had been orienting anyone recently. I didn't think I had a bad attitude but anyway. Then about a week later we had a nurses meeting. In the meeting he said, "Nursing department sucks." Literally, that is word for word. And --------I----------have a bad attitude????He went on about one evening where there were several nurses working on a certain unit, one nurse was orienting two other nurses and they THOUGHT an insulin didn't get given (it did, just about 15 minutes late) so he talks about "the nursing station where there were three nurses working and it wasnt ____station" (there are only two nursing stations) and went on to bash nursing and talk about how things arent getting done, blah blah blah. Well, I don't think any of us are sitting around on our A****s. Oh, I could go on and on forever but I will spare you the gorey details.

   My feeling on this goes as follows:
   Lazy co-workers ( it's not my job)
   Office staff that will not answer a ringing phone
   Residents that can help themselves and will not even attempt it .
   Higher -ups who set all the RULES for us on the front line that do the work, they have no idea what it takes nor do they care .
10. 
    Aug 1, '05

    Joined: Jul '05; Posts: 40

    Today I'm going with co-workers. Get a load of this-co-worker is on modified (an yes I have empathy) d/t a back injury-she's not supposed to lift > 25 lbs. That's fine-but she won't answer her call bells, she won't do anything- now I'm nursing 16 pts instead of the usual 8-she gets an admission of a peptic ulcer-the guys hurling- and she says "can one of you go empty hsi basin-looking at vomit makes me sick"-why don't you just go home!!!!!!!!!
11. 
    Aug 1, '05

    Joined: Jun '01; Posts: 10,070; Likes: 8,409

    Quote from lee22

    ...why don't you just go home!!!!!!!!!

    I'm totally with you there. We have about a dozen nurses in our unit with permanent (or so it seems) weight restrictions of <10kg. They feel that this means they should never be assigned to any patient weighing more than that, regardless of how much or how little lifting or turning is involved. That means they can't be resource/code nurse, since alot of what the resource nurse does is help with turns, changes and x-rays or running to codes where who knows how big the kid is until you see it. That also means they can't be the admitting nurse either, because what if the admission isn't an infant (most of them aren't). We often have a lot of small kids in the unit but when we don't it becomes a problem. There are a few of us, without weight restrictions, who always get the 100kg teenaged male MVC with the C-spine injuries who need to be logrolled, or the 60kg developmentally delayed spastic quad with seizures and aspiration pneumonia who isn't able to turn or even indicate a need for a turn... and we're usually stuck with them in an out-of-view bed or isolation room. Just try to get help! I feel that if you can't care for a patient heavier than a sack of flour, then you need to go work in NICU. (I really wonder what some of the nurses do at home with their own healthy toddlers. Bet they pack them around just fine.)
12. 
    Aug 1, '05

    Occupation: LTC rn Joined: Jun '05; Posts: 185; Likes: 13

    I feel like the people who work together should try and mesh. I have a lot of co workers that tell me they've done something and haven't. I found that 2 of the people I've relied on to help me figure out things are liars. Now I not only have to double check their work I have to try and figure out when they're lying. I don't like people who think they should be able to come in whenever they want, cuz the rest of us have to pick up the slack.
    Management pisses me off too. They don't follow through with discipline rules, have fits over stupid little things and seldom listen to what we say.
13. 
    Aug 1, '05

    Occupation: Operating Room Nurse Specialty: 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER ; From: US ; Joined: Jun '03; Posts: 17,036; Likes: 1,006

    The (few, not all) RNs that have the holier-than-thou attitude, who will tell you to your face (repeatedly) that they think "nothing less than an RN belongs in the OR".
    
    Oh, yes, and these are the same ones that whine that teamwork isn't what it used to be. Gee, i wonder why.
    
    Doesn't affect my job, however it annoys me that people will go out of their way to be such jerks.
    
    And set a prime example of what i won't be as an RN.

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