Gives new meaning to the phrase "take a breath". Ethics classes in nursing should start looking at balancing what a nurse needs to do for a patient, and what the patient wants the nurse to do for them. For what management wants - it has little to do with good patient care. Frustrations rise, and nurses are left wondering...what the heck has happened here?
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When did parts of nursing become a weird cult? That somehow, there's a lot of nurses drinking kool-aid at a party where you would prefer water? (or for some a stiff adult beverage?)
The newest and greatest seems to be a constant message of nurses being in charge of their own stuff, when in reality, they are not in charge at all.
Blame is fickle. If things are good and numbers are up, then management takes a bow, cheers themselves that they are successful, and starts a new plan to cut even more nursing staff to just play on the edge to see how far they can take their perceived success. After all, there is such a huge nursing surge of new grads who want to work, who cares who is stepped on along the way. Loyalty is a thing of the long past.
If things are not so good, it is blamed on nursing. They are resistant to change. There is no way that anyone can prove that 7-8 patients are "too many". If you don't have the time, you need to make the time--as meal breaks are over-rated anyways.
Then comes the part where nurses are given "opportunity" such as clinical ladders and other marketing type tools to make it likely that the patient ultimately doesn't get a nurse's all, but gosh darn it, we will give you a rung on the ladder of success. A "feel good" concept. Motivational "you are in control of your own ship/plane/bus" is a theory based on if it seems like a nurse is important, who cares if they have a huge patient load. "We believe in you" means dollar signs once you board the train to wonderland.
Never have nurses felt so bullied, disrespected and harassed as they seem to at present by management. It is a rat race extraordinaire. And there are literally hundreds of threads on this very subject on AN as we speak. Hang up your art part of nursing--heck even your science--just embrace customer service. Only the customers are gravely ill, and you hold their lives and/or livelihood in balance. And all of the magnet/clinical steps/inspiration for the modern nurse/set sail for success stuff will not bring a patient back, a mistake unmade, a nurse's passion for being a nurse.
Patient focus doesn't mean moving forward with patient function being priority. Patient focus is now on serving wants, being kind to visitors, making time out of no time at all.
It is the ultimate ethical dilemma of modern nursing. Can a nurse be focused on the life and well being of a patient's function--while at the same time smiling, nodding, heck practically bowing and keeping a patient focus on why they are hospitalized and prevention as opposed to if their soup is too cold, their room is too hot, and the smart aleck nurse was rude to their cousins?
Facilities have become business model corporations, and nurses the customer service reps. That they have the knowledge and ability to help a patient live is a side note.
