Hi all. I'm wondering how long nurses usually work before they're considered ready to be charge nurse. The reason I ask is because I have been a nurse for approximately 4 months and I was put in charge just the other night. If any of you read my other posts you see that I'm still learning and definitely shouldn't be trusted to be responsible for all that a charge nurse has to do. So, day shift did not actually tell me I was in charge. After all of them had scattered one of my coworkers just mentioned it. I imediately said I don't think so. I actually refused. And I'm very glad I did. Everyone had faith I could do it, but they're wrong and I feel like they're so short staffed that they actually are putting patients lives at risk. It's not only a safety issue, but it's not fair to me. I ended up not even sitting down until 4:30 am and then only for 30 minutes. There is no way I could have handled being charge. Plus, j haven't been trained to be. My boss agreed when I talked to her about it, but I feel like if I had agreed to do it and nobody died then she would have just let me do it.
What do you guys think?
I'm already looking into other places to work. They just have such a low standard of care and so short staffed. Oh and not to mention there was a nurse working that had been there for 30 years and they didn't make Her charge. Instead some nurse a little more experienced than me was. I don't get it.