in december,a colleague and i,assigned to be on call 2300-0700 on this particular night, were called in at 2300 and stayed until 0220,then returned to our homes. at 0540 my phone rang - i was called in again. now,in our pacu we are given one hour to get in from the time we are called. it normally takes just about that long from where i live, and it would be at least that long on this snowy,icy (roads) night with winds gusting to 104km/hr (i guess about 60 mph). the conditions at 0230 when i went home were not great. we were assigned to be on again at 1500, but they don't care ("hey,you chose to work pacu!")
so,that would bring my arrival time at 0640...20 minutes before the day staff was due in. i called the or and told the charge that i would not be coming in all that way for 20 minutes. my colleague,whom i'd called and consulted before i called the or, was going in - she lives right in the city,about 20 minutes away - i,in a suburb.
yesterday,i received a note from my nurse manager requesting that we meet to discuss. she'd included an email she'd received from the nurse manager of the or to whom the charge nurse had reported me that night. interesting that the or nm decided it was fine to pad her argument by saying that i refused to come in for "30 minutes". my clock read 0640 not 0630. i won't back down on that!
i expect i'll be told i had no right to refuse to come in. i'm sure that under the terms any of us work in pacu,that the rule is: you do whatever you need to do to be in on whatever call shift you're assigned...no matter what. fine!
but, in your opinions,......is there a reasonable time at which you can refuse to come in - a point that is just common sense!?
for instance,if they call you at 0555 and your arrival time is 0655....5 minutes before the day staff is due....is it reasonable to refuse to come in...this has actually happened! it has even happened that on call staff here were called at 0600 to come in....right when the day staff walk through the door.
have we no say at all? you certainly hear lots of examples of anesthetists refusing to come in at night to do a case the surgeon wants to do! is it too much to ask for someone already there to wrap a bp cuff on,do a resp count,get warm blankets,sit with the pt - especially for a mere 20 mins on a winter night when we'd already been in. i think their (implied) response, "tough! i wanna go home!" is just a little bit 'precious'.
my question is: is there a cut off time (official or assumed) in your pacu after which you can refuse to come in?
maybe i need to leave pacu...maybe 28 years is long enough to be a nurse,maybe i'm burnt out...i just hate that we nurses spend our entire careers doing what we're told to do -by both doctors and administration.
