Help with a poor nurse manager

[INparrothead]

All right friends, here's my problem... I'm a lowly LPN new to the facility and not 100% sure who is friends with whom. The Unit Manager on weekends is the RN for the floor in the LTC facility where I work, the go to person. The problem is her nursing skills are lacking to say the least; to the point I'm afraid to ask her for help if I get behind because I don't trust her judgement. And when she is on the floor, I find pills on residents trays, incomplete treatments, etc... What should I do? Report it all and get termed if I talk to the wrong person? That's what my gut says, but a job is kind of nice to have. Ignore it and hope for the best? Not going to lay easy on my mind when someone dies. Follow her and clean up the messes? Not enough time in the day. I don't expect an answer to magically pop up here, I really just need to vent. But what does everyone think?

[flymomrn]

Any EMT, LPN, RN ever notice a person wasn't quite right and check their glucose, finding a critically low value? Ever do CPR and have the patient regain vital signs before arrival at the hospital, or arrival of the code team? Ever make a suggestion to a doctor resulting in a profound improvement in a persons life? When a doctor says he can't get a history because the patient's asleep and you notice on the monitor he's also in V Tach?

In school we study life, ever so difficult to define because it's a process, not a material thing. Can you buy life, say get a glass full (never mind tequila)? No, because life is just a process from "cradle to grave."

So whatever your license level you've, improved the quality of a patients life, increased a patients lifespan, or brought a deceased patient to life? Why you must be a God to wield such super human power! You've done what most people consider impossible, and done it all in a days work. So why do you call yourself "just a nurse," "a lowly LPN," or belittle yourself in any way? The word "just" should never be associated with a person who can bring the dead to life, keep the dying alive longer, and bring comfort to the suffering.

We should shout from the mountain tops, I am a nurse! I am an EMT! I bring the dead back to life!

I love the saying "A person who saves one life is a hero...a person who saves a hundred lives is a nurse".