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.
Wow. Speaking as a former CNA you have my sympathies. Speaking as a nurse I'm wondering how the rest of the nursing staff can deal with her.
She doesn't sound like she's in control of her own job at all and she may be fixating on the CNAs because she thinks she can control that.
I'm not sure talking to her is going to be effective or even if it's a good idea.
CNAs have a very specific role in patient care that overlaps with that of the nurse but has it's own separate rules as well...That is to say, while it is important to both you and the nurse that the patient be toileted or fed etc., you, the CNAs, need a system that makes it possible for you to do your job effectively. From my experience, that's the kind of thing that works best if you hammer it out with your fellow CNAs.
If it works well, it's in the best interest of the nurse to respect that and let you do your jobs. The CNAs I've worked with are usually very good about doing their thing and then reporting on any issues they've picked up on. It's a team effort and collaboration and respect are key.
It sounds like you're very frustrated. My suggestion is that you take a step back, sit down and write down the specifics of your job responbilities, the strategies you and your fellow CNAs use to deal with them effectively, the kind of working relationship you would like to have with your supervising nurse, and how can management help you accomplish that.
These types of situations can spiral into a disorganized and very personal mess very quickly so just focus on the basics, and make sure that on your end this is all about the job and not about personalities.
Let cooler heads prevail and let yours be the heads that are cool.
mazy
932 Posts
Wow. Speaking as a former CNA you have my sympathies. Speaking as a nurse I'm wondering how the rest of the nursing staff can deal with her.
She doesn't sound like she's in control of her own job at all and she may be fixating on the CNAs because she thinks she can control that.
I'm not sure talking to her is going to be effective or even if it's a good idea.
CNAs have a very specific role in patient care that overlaps with that of the nurse but has it's own separate rules as well...That is to say, while it is important to both you and the nurse that the patient be toileted or fed etc., you, the CNAs, need a system that makes it possible for you to do your job effectively. From my experience, that's the kind of thing that works best if you hammer it out with your fellow CNAs.
If it works well, it's in the best interest of the nurse to respect that and let you do your jobs. The CNAs I've worked with are usually very good about doing their thing and then reporting on any issues they've picked up on. It's a team effort and collaboration and respect are key.
It sounds like you're very frustrated. My suggestion is that you take a step back, sit down and write down the specifics of your job responbilities, the strategies you and your fellow CNAs use to deal with them effectively, the kind of working relationship you would like to have with your supervising nurse, and how can management help you accomplish that.
These types of situations can spiral into a disorganized and very personal mess very quickly so just focus on the basics, and make sure that on your end this is all about the job and not about personalities.
Let cooler heads prevail and let yours be the heads that are cool.