I can't take this nurse anymore!

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

This is long but I need to vent. If anyone has any advice feel free to share please!

I'm a CNA and most of our residents eat lunch in the dining room every day. Usually as they finish eating someone will transport them back to the unit, and we normally wrap things up between 1 and 1:15pm. After everyone is back we start our last rounds- toileting, walks, and laying down for naps. When rounds are done we fill out the I&Os and then we have side work to do (linens, supplement drinks, etc). The CNAs who remain on the floor at lunch toilet a few people as they come back, but they have feeds and call lights of their own. And there's only so much you can do when most people are still eating.

The nurse starts her medpass at 1 o'clock. She wants her I&Os, BM list and ambulations all written out by 2. That gives us an hour at the most to do everybody. Whenever another nurse is on, we can do it, but this nurse won't leave us alone. She interrupts us constantly. We try to take someone to the bathroom and she says, "not yet I haven't given their meds!" So we go to the next room and she says "not yet I'm doing them next!" So we get involved doing someone else while she gives them their pills and then she's after you about whether they pooped or not. You say you don't know because you haven't toileted them yet and you get yelled at. "Why not?" This is after she *just* told you not to do them yet!! She follows us from room to room asking questions. If someone got MoM we have to give her updates like every hour and by this time of day if they still haven't gone she flips out on us. What are we supposed to do, reach up there and yank it out? Every 2 minutes it's, "did you do this? did you do that? Why not? [because you told us not to!!!] Well do it now." It's impossible to get anything done. Then if the paperwork isn't done at 2 she pulls someone off the floor to go do it, which slows us down even more. Then she sends that person to harass everybody for the I&Os, which aren't done yet because she wouldn't let us toilet them yet!!!!. She also makes a mess of people's clothes- spills Ensure all over them and then calls us away from what we're doing to go change them. That's when she actually gives the Ensure instead of making us do it. She also makes us wait to do a lot of stuff so she can watch. So she'll tell us she wants to see us walk So-and-So. Then harasses us every 2 minutes if we haven't done it yet. So we have to drop everything and wait for her until she's done giving a pill to someone, so that she can stand there and watch us walk the person. If we do it when she's not looking she thinks we're lying. And if the person doesn't want to walk she won't take no for an answer. She has to witness us getting punched by the resident before she'll accept the refusal. Or you know how when someone doesn't want to walk so they go limp on you? We have to kill our backs dragging these people down the hall just to satisfy her. Yup, they "walked." Oh and after she has a day off she grills us about what went on when she wasn't there!

And I mean this is only the last 2 hours of the day I'm talking about! She's like this all day, although it gets worse after lunch. Everybody is so stressed out! It's unhealthy. We all get headaches by the end of the day and when I leave after she's there, I feel DRAINED. When the other nurse is on (unfortunately not very often), everybody is in a good mood. You can actually relax and do your job and enjoy the residents. We get things done twice as fast-- Ms. Crack the Whip would probably say we slack off when the nice nurse is on but we don't. We just get everything done because we're not interrupted every 2 minutes.

I had to deal with her all day and I'm already having anxiety about tomorrow. It's that bad.

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Goodness. I got nuthin', fuzzy. I'm really sorry you have to deal with that nonsense.

[Sparrowhawk]

If your DON supports you I'd go talk to her/him. She's impeding resident care.

[2CareerRN]

It's always good to vent! Is there any way you can talk with her; try to explain how you see things and how you guys can come to a compromise. If something isn't done about this, you will no like your job. That would stink.

[caliotter3]

I suspect that talking to her would do no good. Consider having a talk with her supervisor and telling her everything you said in your post here. Your points are very valid, and the individual could stand to improve their productivity if these matters were addressed. Most likely won't happen unless the supervisor gets involved. Good luck.

[Leelee2]

My advice would be to follow the chain of command, speak directly to this nurse first and explain to her your valid points, give it another shift, if no improvement speak to the unit manager, then ADON or DON. Good luck to you, I hope that this can be resolved and that you can work as a team, to best serve the residents you both care for.

[anonymurse]

I'm right there with you, fuzzywuzzy. Just one micromanaging nurse on our floor can screw up our aides' ability to support all the rest of us. Hang in there.

[ImASuckyCMA87]

But Leelee what if talking directly to this nurse offends her? What if she has one of those "holier than thou" attitudes and mistakes poor fuzzy's sincerity for arrogance or insubordination? That was suck. And make it very difficult for her to work with from there on out.

[franciscangypsy]

posted post to wrong board. ignore my post. heh

[shiccy]

As far as the person that she STOPPED you from taking to the bathroom, I would tell her, "I'm ok with not taking her to the bathroom, but I'm geared up and ready to go, so you've got two choices. #1 You let me take her to the bathroom right now and you go to the person next door and pass her meds and come back. If you don't want to do that then YOU can take her to the bathroom after you're done, and by the time you take her I should hopefully have next door toileted..."

It sounds like she's interrupting your routine far too much for your (and probably anybody else NA-wise) liking...

As far as the I&O's are concerned, if she asked you for more than one person's I&O's, then something along the lines of, "I've not finished my rounding yet, so if you really want me to give you the I&O's for that patient, great, but you're going to have to chart them. Make that the rule for this nurse every time.

Finally, a polite inquiry to her about, "You *do* know you will not always have instantaneous or even SAME DAY results with MOM, right?" When she says, "Sure," say, "OK, then. I'll write any and all BM's in the I&O sheet. If you have any questions after that, let me know."

FWIW in a Stepdown unit it's RARE to have I&O's more often than Q4h, so politely ask her to get off your back. Finally, sometimes there's a reason people are like this. Either they've had bad experiences with prior or current aids, or possibly your charting yourself isn't 100% up to snuff. Introspect as well before pointing fingers, and if you have nothing wrong, ask if there's a reason you're getting the third degree :)

[cebuana_nurse]

I don't know if we work in the same facility but we have a nurse that frequently does the same thing and almost all of the aides that has worked with her doesn't like her because of how she does things. I believe that it would be beneficial for you to speak up and defend yourself. Just like the above poster said, let her do someone else so that you could toilet the residents that needs to be toileted. After all, physiologic needs come first than taking their pills. Good Luck and hang in there! =D

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

I'm a highly sensitive person per this test... which I guess kind of goes along with also being an INFJ or ENFJ. When I first started on tele, I cried b/c I felt so overwhelmed and out of control. Now I get told that people don't know when I'm behind or stressed b/c I also calm -- never look frazzled.

Like someone said earlier -- once you get used to the floor and realize you have help, even a highly sensitive person can work a stressful floor job.

It sounds like you're blaming me for being too sensitive/stressed out...? I admit that I do have anxiety, but this nurse frazzles EVERYONE, not just me. Why should everyone else have to learn to "get over it" and work under constant stress when she is the problem? She even gets after the nurses and CNAs on other shifts. Administration has gotten plenty of complaints and they don't do anything about it. Sometimes they'll tell her to leave us alone, but she won't. And she's not the type of person you can talk to. She gets defensive right away and she'll start yelling over you. I've seen people try to explain things to her and it's not pretty.

I'm one of the few people she actually likes, so she's a LOT easier on me personally. But I still hate to see her picking on other people. And the way she runs the floor is awful. She thinks that trying to control every little detail means the residents are getting the best care, and they're not! They get better care on her day off because the routine we have when she's not there makes more sense than the one she forces us into.

You'd think it would be easier to give in and do whatever pleases her, but that's a guessing game. One day she'll yell at you for, say, getting someone OOB to eat breakfast. So the next day you'll leave that person in bed, and she'll yell at you for that. Then if you say, "but yesterday you said we should leave her in bed" she'll deny it. AND, if you go to her first and ask what she'd like you to do you get flack for that! She's never happy with anything.