Inexperienced nurses in the Big Chair

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Specializes in med surg, tele, ortho, preop, recovery.

I visited my old job yesterday, and I was shocked to find how many new grads are working as charge nurse, supervisor etc over a busy cardiac floor!! I always thought that experienced nurses would be in charge over a floor like that. I was thinking of picking up occasional days at this hospital, but now that I see the trend of putting new nurses in charge, I'm reconsidering this. Why would a hospital do this?

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Specializes in med surg, tele, ortho, preop, recovery.

Wow just scrolled down and saw someone else posted the same issue. Sorry about the repetitive post.

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Probably because they are the full time RNs, and either senior to the others working that day, or being given the experience while there are others around for help. Sometimes "charge" gets rotated around so no one person has to do it all the time. I look back and at 6 months I was often the most experieinced RN on the unit. Scary to think back!

Since it is your old unit, you should know the culture.

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Specializes in med surg, tele, ortho, preop, recovery.

It may have been my old unit, but the culture I remember from almost a year ago has changed quite a bit, which is why I was shocked to see this happening.

To see inexperienced people over a unit of even more inexperienced people (new grads) on a telemetry floor is straight frightening to me. This is a floor where codes happen on the regular.

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More experienced, and therefore a little more expensive, nurses are certainly easily replaced by less experienced and therefore a little more economical for the budget nurses.

;) Ode to the horn of plenty!!!:hrnsmlys:

With no union to protect us in most places, namely the south and will to work states it is easier for employers, both big corporate and small as well, to do this if they want for any reason (other than age, race, sex, disabilities or religion, of course, and then it better be blatant) without recourse. Maybe the boss doesn't like your hair color, say...:nurse:...just anything.....

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I work on a busy post-surgical/telemetry unit and one of our daylight charge nurses has only 2 years of experience and has been in charge (on and off) for about a year. There are many nurses on my unit that have over 25 years of experience and she is scheduled as charge on days when they're also scheduled. Rumor has it that she basically bullied our nurse manager into letting her be in charge because she doesn't like taking care of patients. She has a ridiculously high level of over-confidence (or arrogance) whether she's in charge or doing patient care. In fact, recently I overheard her tell the secretary to change the way she worded an order because "most of her co-workers aren't smart enough to figure it out." :uhoh3:

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Specializes in LTC.
I work on a busy post-surgical/telemetry unit and one of our daylight charge nurses has only 2 years of experience and has been in charge (on and off) for about a year. There are many nurses on my unit that have over 25 years of experience and she is scheduled as charge on days when they're also scheduled. Rumor has it that she basically bullied our nurse manager into letting her be in charge because she doesn't like taking care of patients. She has a ridiculously high level of over-confidence (or arrogance) whether she's in charge or doing patient care. In fact, recently I overheard her tell the secretary to change the way she worded an order because "most of her co-workers aren't smart enough to figure it out." :uhoh3:

Now thats just unacceptable.

I have been an LPN almost 10 months now. I have been charge nurse at the LTC facility I work at a few times. It is very scary. I so much would rather be taking care of patients.

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

Maybe the younger nurses are doing charge because the more experienced nurses see the charge nurse role for what it really is: referee, whipping post, scapegoat, maintenance man, equipment finder and oh yeah, sometimes we get to be nurses and take care of patients! It is such a different environment being in the charge role, and a lot of our experienced nurses flatly refuse to do it.

When I am in charge, I feel like it is 13 straight hours of being yelled at by various members of the staff. Most of the time, the complaints are from misunderstandings or decisions made days prior that had nothing to do with me, but I am expected to come up with a solution nevertheless. It is incredibly frustrating to smooth over problems that you had/have no control over (like scheduling, call outs, equipment that is missing/borrowed without your knowledge, reps that didn't show up for a special procedure, etc.). The mental fatigue takes a toll.

I would take a patient care assignment any day of the week over charge duties!

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If the experienced staff are few in number, I wonder if they protested about constantly precepting new nurses or being in charge. A nurse can burn out with too much charge.

I do worry about inexperienced nurses looking after less experienced nurses. Too many new grads working at the same time is trouble waiting to happen.

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Specializes in MSP, Informatics.

Our small hospital just had three nurse managers quit and take staffing positions. we have 6 nursing units (MSP, SNU, CCU, ER, OB and OR) and now have just 2 nurse managers...one of the managers is doing double duty--managing both ER and CCU.... which probably is not a good idea. I'm sure the open positions will end up being filled by newer nurses. If they get filled at all. Some of the managers were driven out over threats that they will be held accountable if we do not get flying colors in our next survey... others because they were told they were expected to personally cover any call in on their floor. How can you manage when you are pulling 12 hr night shifts as staff all the time?

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Our hospital fired all our experienced supervisors and hired mostly-male nurses (2 women, the rest men) to be our supervisors; one had never even worked in a hospital before. I was told I was "too old for your job" when I protested staffing levels one day-a definite warning that if I didn't like the staffing to keep my mouth shut or be fired. My direct supervisor was my aide three years ago. Inexperience is cheaper-at least to the hospital.

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I was off of orientation for only a few days when I was in charge the first weekend on a brand new unit with all new grads, including myself. The only experienced nurse on the floor was a per diem and she was floated elsewhere. I walked onto a 40 patient unit with only four new nurses, equaling 10 patients per nurse. Two patients were expected to expire very soon. I called the supervisor to question how safe this could possibly be and was told that since I "appeared" experienced, she had no idea that I was a brand-new nurse. There was so much smoke being blown you-know-where that I couldn't believe it! I asked why the only experienced nurse on the floor was floated to another unit and was told that PDs float first. Well, amongst my many tears and frustrations, both patients did expire very soon. As post-mortem care was being delivered to one of them, I had to intercept the family from walking into the room. They clearly had not yet been notified! I will never forget nor forgive the administration for allowing this to occur. It was unfair to both patients and nurses. But, most often, the patients and families are not aware of the many stressors happening to the nurse and the nurse appears uninterested, uncaring and unavailable. It is a true injustice to all RNs, especially those that truly do care about their patients and their families.

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