How much do you do?

It all depends on who the nurse is. If it is someone who normally does their work and was just extremely busy, I usually will cover for them or finish whatever was not done. If it is someone who is habitually lazy/forgetful I will not.

I just have a question, are you the oncoming nurse? It is policy in our facility that if the admitting nurse does not complete an admission, etc, then the oncoming nurse should pick it up where she left off.

I had this issue the other day. The evening shift nurse left and said, "If you have time, please do some of the admission I didn't have time to do. If not, I'll finish it when I come back tomorrow." I'm an agency nurse who did not know any of the residents and had 29 to do meds and treatments on, so I did not have much time to do someone else's work,(the first time you go to a new facility, you have to learn their routine, and whether the residents can swallow pills or needs them crushed, when the meds/txs are due, etc, etc, and sometimes can barely finish your own stuff on time, the only drawback to agency), plus when I started trying to do a little to help her out, there were questions I didn't know, like the time of admission, how she got there, where she was admitted from, etc. Plus I was on 11-7 and the patient had just had pain meds and was sleeping away, so needless to say I didn't wake her to answer questions. Sometimes I'm tempted also to give meds that the shift before didn't give, but I know I can't, because I always think, what if they gave it and forgot to sign the book, and they get a double dose? I'm not willing to take that risk (at most of the LTC facilities there is no computerized machine to tell you when the last dose was given, just a book that's either initialed or not).

Oh, speaking of which, something happened the other day that took the cake! I heard a nurse fuss at another nurse that came on the shift behind her the day before, because she'd asked the nurse to do her treatments she hadn't had time to do, and the oncoming nurse had forgotten one. I couldn't believe she was fussing at someone who was doing her a favor she didn't have to do in the first place. In most places I've seen it's not an option to leave without doing all of your paperwork/txs/admissions. I've stayed until 10 (on 11-7) because I was not finished and saw another girl stay until 3 am (from 3-11) because she had to finish an admission. I say do your own work, and don't leave stuff for the next shift. After the new nurse takes over the patient care, you can concentrate solely on that admission, paperwork, or treatment until it is done. I tell my babysitter that i could be as late as 11 am getting home because I have to finish my work, not that I like doing it but it's what needs to be done and it's MY work to finish. Sorry, just my little rant.

To answer the question in regards to the oncoming nurse, yes I have been the oncoming nurse, but I am not going to wake a resident up at midnight to ask them about their health history, do they have trouble with voiding, etc. Plus, this nurse that leaves everything does that all the time! I do not like to leave things for the next shift to do, but when I have 2 admissions, and they both came at 1pm, then I sure can't get all of the paperwork done myself!

Many nites I've seen nurses stay to get all of the charting done, but the facility we work at frowns highly on those who routinely have overtime! Usually, you get your hours cut on the next schedule. You better have a good reason why you were there longer than your shift! I've had it happen to me!

It's even frustrating when the charge nurse doesn't even help out with an admission! I had to stay 1 1/2 hours longer one day to do an admission because the charge nurse had never done one before, and we had agreed on doing it together, well, she left after giving report and I'm still doing charting! And I was the med nurse that day!

I don't like to leave stuff for others to finish, cause I know how crazy it gets, and don't like it when they do it to me! I can understand it when they have been busy, but when it's been quiet, and it happens all the time, unacceptable!

This is my biggest pet peeve in nursing. If I start the admission then I complete it no matter if I have to stay over to get it put in the computor or not, If I don't have time to complete it then I don't start it. I have been pulled from ICU to go help on Med-Surg where there are 8-10 admissions some that have been there 12-16 hours without having their admisssion assessments done..as soon as I completed the assessment which was documented at the time I did it (I can not assess for times I didn't even know the patient existed) After I finish the admission assessment I then filed incident reports and after the manager and risk manager got tired of following up on late admission assessment there were changes made.

Hi Mickeypat!

This is one of my major pet peeves too--primarily happens throughout every LTC(are you in a LTC?) I've worked.

Most of the nurses I worked with in the last LTC got out 1-3 hrs late just about every day(me too)BECAUSE of the paperwork, constant phone calls, tons of tx, etc. The DON finally said she wasn't going to pay overtime anymore so we'd work on our own time to finish the tasks(the work HAD to get done after all).

Nursing is TEAMWORK and we SHOULD help each other out but I agree there is a limit! The nurses I worked with helped me out with admissions and vice versa. If you have a time limit on the admission process, then SOMEONE HAS TO STAY TO DO IT. Perhaps you and this other nurse should reach some kind of compromise? Or perhaps you two could meet with the DON who could make a mutually-agreeable decision for you.

Hi Drifter,

Yes, I'm in LTC. This nurse does it to all of the other nurses also. She has been talked to, she has been reported to the DON and nothing has been done about it yet. This nurse is part of the reason I almost quit this facility. She has this attitude of "I'm better than the rest of you" and when she has told the aides that she will NOT answer call lights. I personally don't feel she is there for the job, just there to be the "social director". She repeatedly doesn't finish paperwork even when she is told to do it. She also is one of our case managers!

She is hurting the morale of the nurses that she works with! Enough to make a person spit tacks!

I'm still new to LTC, but I've already found one nurse that I hate to follow. As I work 10-6, I feel like there are a few things that I can help out with, such as giving eye gtt's that patients wanted to wait awhile on, etc.

This nurse, tho, leaves everything - she doesn't do her treatments, charting, etc. She leaves the nurses station in a shambles, which is my personal pet peeve. She doesn't check her CNA's at all!! I've come to dread coming in when I know she's been on.

She's fairly new, too, so maybe she needs more orientation?