How long before being charge nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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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.

I will be glad to be charge and do want to one day learn how to do all that comes with that title, but right now I'm just learning how to take care of my patients. I don't think it would be safe for me to be focusing on anything other than that at this time. All of the people I work with say I could do it and one person even said she was disappointed in me for saying no. But they're going on me LOOKING confident. I have the type of personality where o just go with the flow and usually don't let things get to me. Just because I try to act like I know what I'm doing doesn't mean I always do lol that's the truth. So knowing that I don't think they should've expected me to be charge. I'm sure whoever put me down was thinking I would just do it. Sometimes I have to say no though. I already went along with getting off orientation way early while everyone else gets their full 12 weeks. Soooo, that's that :)

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I would do anything in the world not to be a charge nurse or manager! Too much headache and I hate hearing people complain!!! I love positive vibes :)

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Specializes in Inpatient Oncology/Public Health.
Being charge AND having patients-- no way! That is something that even very experienced charge nurses become nervous about (at least on my unit).

Take it as a compliment that your boss asked you, and maybe keep it in your back pocket that you can apply for the position later when you have more experience.

We always have a full patient load when charge on nights.

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Specializes in Critical Care/Vascular Access.
I would do anything in the world not to be a charge nurse or manager! Too much headache and I hate hearing people complain!!! I love positive vibes :)

I agree with positive vibes. The cool thing about being charge in that sense is that you have a little more ability to generate those "positive vibes". I'm sure most of us would agree the person who is charging can make for a much more smooth or chaotic shift depending entirely on their demeanor and how they handle situations.

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Specializes in Critical Care/Vascular Access.
We always have a full patient load when charge on nights.

We used to take patients as well on the surgical floor I was on. Everyone hated working with the one or two people who charged and didn't take patients because it would just drown the rest of nurses.

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I know this wasn't directed at me, but I just wanted to say the reason I've always enjoyed charging is because I'm a busy body. Even when I'm not charging I like being involved in as much as I can, I like learning as much as I can, and I like to know what's going on all around the floor (although I do intentionally try not to be nosy). I like people coming to me with problems not so I can show of my (lack of) knowledge, but so I can learn with them how to solve it. It's just a kind of curiosity I guess. So that tendency worked well with being charge because then it was my business to at least have an idea of what was going on with all the patients on the floor.

You're right though, charges don't really have much power except to shift people around and assign rooms so if power is the reason someone becomes charge it's pretty useless.

I mean this in the best possible way - you'd drive me freaking crazy as a charge nurse. I want other nurses in my business as little as possible (while conscientiously updating charge as needed).

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Specializes in Management, Med/Surg, Clinical Trainer.

At one hospital I worked at Charge Nurse was designated by who was most senior on the shift, with the hospital. Overall years of experience was not a factor, because they did not want to slight the new ones.

Needless to say it was a mess some days.

And there was no additional compensation or drop in patient load. So the person got to be Charge....I guess for the increased torture.

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