I Acted terribly unprofessional today...

Nurses Relations

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What I did today was just terrible, inconsiderate, and unprofessional. I did not think about the patient,nurses, or any other colleagues. Today I was assigned to work as a sitter ( which I don't like at all). The only thing I love about sitting is the fact that I'm able to take care of the patient. However, I go through so much as a sitter. Sitters are not treated with respect we are the at the very bottom of the health care team and treated as such. As a new grad, I'm so eager to do more... however I know thats not possible until I get licensed. Anyway, I go through alot emotionally just to sit. Sitters have to sit with the patient 12 hours and thats it. If the patient is busy then I love it, but when the patient is calm thats when it gets really boring. I'm a busy body and for me sit for 12 hours is just torture.

Anyway, today I was called to sit 7a-7p. I walk in the staffing office receive my assignment and walk out. When I walk out, I realize that I'm to sit with a pysch patient. All of a sudden, I can feel the blood rushing to my head and I felt whoozy. Psych is just not for me. I've worked as a sitter with a psych patient before and it really affected me pyschologically. So instead of just walking back into the staffing office and requesting another patient, I just ran out the hospital and broke down in my car. :bluecry1:A few minutes later I called my agency to let them know the horrible thing I did, and I also notified the staffing office.

I feel very bad and I even questioned if nursing was for me. I never thought I would do something so bad and unprofessional. I believe they were able to find coverage for the patient, but I still feel terrible.

Maybe nursing isn't for me....:confused:

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I think that you learned about yourself through this experience and am proud that you were able to acknowledge that you have an issue that needs to be dealt with. I can guarentee you that you WILL encounter psych patients and probably have been surrounded by them and had no idea. You'd be surprized at what a neatly dressed, clean and articulate speaking person will say!

Maybe some counseling will do. And, because of your honesty, I hope that your agency and the facility shows some empathy. Nurses and nursing staff should be supportive of each other.

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Specializes in LTC.
an even bigger question to ask herself is why she seems to assume the worst about anyone before she talks to them and gets the story. (referring to her "compassion -- why is it so hard to give some?" thread where she also assumes the worst about her colleagues before checking for their side of the patient's story.) she won't be able to pick and choose either her assignments or her colleagues. something else to think about!

thanks ruby vee. i remember that post and that is why i won't do a accept a sitting assignment ever again. i feel that i just can't be a sitter anymore, especially with the probabilty of me sitting one on one for 12 hours with a psych patient. i rather not do a job then to do a job and let patients and colleagues down. if i can't give my best to patients and my employers then its time for me to hit the road. idk if nursing is for me or not. i've only worked as a tech and sitter and got through nursing school. however, i did learn a valuable lesson the other day and thats to handle things in a more professional way. to answer you questions: i did not assume that the nurses were not compassionate. i seen and heard them with my own ears and eyes the way they talked to patients. as a sitter you are like a fly on the wall. you see and hear alot, and yes i saw some nurses talk rude to patients and i've saw excellent nurses as well. you're right i won't be able to pick and choose assigments or colleagues as a nurse, but as of now i can decided whether to work as a sitter or not and i choose not to. atleast nurses don't have to sit with one on one with a pysch patient for 12 hours ( with only a 30 minutes break).

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.
Atleast nurses don't have to sit with one on one with a pysch patient for 12 hours ( with only a 30 minutes break).

Not true. My facility uses nurses as sitters when necessary.

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Specializes in LTC.
Not true. My facility uses nurses as sitters when necessary.

Forgive me. I just haven't came across a situation like this yet. I do have a question though. Are those nurses still held to a license or just works as a sitter ?

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Specializes in psych, addictions, hospice, education.

I've worked as a sitter when there hasn't been enough of a census on my regular floor, and I had a license. Sometimes I acted as the patient's sitting nurse and sometimes I didn't. It depended on whether I was comfy being on a different floor and if the manager felt I was competent or not.

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Specializes in MSP, Informatics.

not everyone can handle a psych patient. ..

i have a problem like some others, with pigeonholing a patient. i knew a great cardiac nurse, who didn't like gastro patients...she would freeze when she had to pass an ng tube on a post op patient. was crackerjack on any cardiac wreck we had. but if the patient was labeled a cardiac patient, and they needed an ng, that was ok... she just had a problem with the label of the patient!

and arn't a lot of psych patients other patients? (have other things wrong with them) and arn't a lot of med-surg, ccu, etc patients also psych patients?

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Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

Something that sticks out from my psych rotation in nursing school was the following statement: "The purpose of this class is not to make you psych nurses. You'll see psych patients on every floor, be it OB, peds, ED, etc." I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. nursing student 19, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with psych at an early age, but psych patients are people too. My grandmother was just in the hospital with suicidal ideation and depression related to a brain tumor. She had a 1:1 during her entire stay in the Neuro ICU and I was so thankful she did for her safety. Remember that psych is not just behavioral, but pathological too. Mental illness is real sickness just like a medical disease.

I'm curious, what was it about this patient that scared you off? Was it something about their diagnosis or simply the label of "psych"? I did 1:1 sitter in a psych hospital in school sometimes and while it was challenging, it was certainly a great learning experience and a test of my patience.

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Everyone has something that triggers them, no matter the situation. The trick is to learn to overcome it. In my experience with both patients and family members, the two things that help the most are 1)scientific and 2)spiritual.

From a scientific perspective, you could try cognitive therapy. Lots of kinds of therapy are just about thinking about your problems, but cognitive therapy is about teaching you to think correctly: identifying what those fears were, identifying the truth, telling yourself the truth.

From a spiritual perspective, my background is christian, and if I knew you were too I'd tell you to try going to a big nondenominational, charismatic or pentacostal church that has amazing worship. If you have NO idea what that would be in your area try asking at a christian bookstore. Why? because they'd recognize that perhaps some of the things going on in a psych ward are a bit spiritual (even if only for you), and help you learn to deal with it. And those churches tend to believe that worship is the strongest form of spiritual warfare, and they'll give you prayers to pray about putting on the armor of God. IMHO, even if the spiritual aspect is absolutely in your imagination, that kind of experience still has benefit because it changes your perspective and gives you strength and courage to do what you have to for your job.

I don't know as much about other religions (at least not from a mystical perspective) but I'm sure most of them have some sort of advice about your fears.

I do remember seeing some tv show called children of the paranormal or something like that about psychic kids. The kids were normal but in some situations they saw things like that scared them. I think they took the approach that what the kids saw was real but it couldn't hurt them and then gave them some sort of tools to confront their fears and not be afraid anymore.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
not everyone can handle a psych patient. just because one is a nurse, it doesn't mean they can do everything. use the same logic with an md. if you had chest pain, would you call a podiatrist?

and certain psych issues are harder than others. me? i can handle schizophrenics and alzheimer's very well, but cannot abide the manic depressives. (i think, c'mon, pick a mood and go with it for the day...)

no matter where you work, you're going to encounter the occaisional psych patient. even if you work in ccu, mi patients sometimes have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. or their families do.

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