If you work in a notoriously bad facility, do you get branded as a "bad" nurse?

[catlvr]

Hi, I've been an LPN for ten years, and was fortunate to work at a great nursing home for five; moved home to help with family, and cannot find a decent place to work. I have a lot of family responsibilities, and 12 hour shifts allow me to manage them - but the only place that I could find is so awful, it is ludicrous...surveyors stayed for six solid days and we have so many tags that I'm truly amazed that they didn't shut us down (as we well deserve). I've been there for three weeks; I don't want to be branded as a bad nurse for working in such a terrible place. Better to jump ship now, before I have to list it on my resume? (I knew that the place was a mess before I started, but had no idea that we would have patient rooms without hot water, inability to flush bed pans, and that it would be a daily hunt/peck/beg for supplies like tube feedings.) Thanks for any insight.

[caliotter3]

My first nursing job was at such a place. I noticed that the administrator and DON managed to get out of Dodge at just the right time and had no trouble finding a new position. As a matter of fact, today, more than 20 years later, the same groups of mgt are still around town. The same can not be said for many of the lower on the totem pole staff nurses. You have to watch out for yourself.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

My first nursing job was at such a place. I noticed that the administrator and DON managed to get out of Dodge at just the right time and had no trouble finding a new position. As a matter of fact, today, more than 20 years later, the same groups of mgt are still around town. The same can not be said for many of the lower on the totem pole staff nurses. You have to watch out for yourself.

OP: there are a couple of perspectives at least on this issue which have been around since the big bang:

1. Is guilt by association. This is what an objective person may resonably assume about the facility and by extension you as an operative in that facility. Whether this assumption is fair or not, it's the risk you take by working there. It is an ethical delemma that is often forsaken to the profit motive much to the infamy of many otherwise decent people.

2. Is kind of like the above and involves being judged by the people you walk with. In other words, your fellow nurses. You may be doing a wonderful job in a terrible facility so your options are to try to make it better while living with the societal opprobrium or move on.

Either way you have an ethical tort to say the least and a very important decision to make. But my way of looking at it is that under no circumstances should a vulnerable person or patient be exploited either physically or financially. And you can take it from there.

[Neats, BSN]

As a LNHA and RN I use to go into troubled facilities to assist with improvement. Your facility may have a bad reputation however I feel it is up to each individual nurse to keep themselves competent.

Bad management happens. The hardest task a manager/supervisor must do is what I call follow through. Think about giving your CNA a task, you must go back and ensure that task is completed in a timely manner and is accurate. It is easy to just ask it is insane to think that is all you need to do.

You probably have a great reputation in the facility and with the family/friends of that facility. I can only imagine the residents/family/friends speak with you a lot. I would not worry about my reputation as long as I am doing the right thing. I have seen many upper managers leave the "anchor" staff are always around providing sound great cares. When I went into those failing facilities it was those "anchor" staff members whom I went to and found the real issues. The facility should be proud to have you as their nurse.