IS anyone acting as a charge nurse yet

[peaceful2100, BSN, RN]

Since the unit I am on is extremely short staffed I have been told that I can be a charge nurse some nights as soon as a week after I am finished with orientation. Since I was working as a graduate nurse and had to stop back in July since I did not pass boards the first time my orientation of coursed stopped. Now, that I passed I am not sure how much more orientation I will get. Has anyone started working as a charge nurse without actually having that regular assigned title of a charge nurse. Can they do this. Is this something that happens on a regular basis I am soooo scared thinking about all this.

[LuvbabiesRN]

Before i say anything else.. congrats on passing boards...

As far as charge nurse goes..... I can't belive they want you to be charge nurse already. I would refuse.. Where i work no one is charge nurse unless they have at least several years of experience... are a Clinical nurse 2 or 3. The charge nurse serves as a resource for all the other nurses and needs to have lots of experience under his/her belt. I have only been a nurse for 4 months but i could not even imagine being charge nurse for at least 2 years or so... I would at least make sure I took ACLS... or PALS.... sounds scary to me!!!!!!

[fab4fan]

I would not recommend that you accept charge; you may have passed boards (congrats!), but just because you are now licensed does not mean that you suddenly were given the experience to be a charge nurse.

Please...think carefully about this. Don't put yourself in a position where you could compromise that license you worked so hard to get.

[nadia562002]

Dont do it. Its not good for you or anyone. I dont care how short staffed they are. There should be plenty of other far more qualified nurses around, like other parts of the hospital and other towns. Just dont let them talk you into it.

[jnette, ASN, EMT-I]

I've been doing charge every so often on our "short days" at the clinic... (7 hours as opposed to ten or more). This is when our Clinical Mgr. is out or the other Charge is off. They said I had to learn sometime. I did charge the first few times with one of them there. Now I do it alone, BUT.... I have either one of them available at ANYtime on the phone if I need them.. I have their cell # and home #, and if I have any questions, I would surely call.

But dialysis is different than being charge on a hospital unit... I've been at my clinic 6 years, so I pretty much know the ropes. Now, as an RN, I've learned that end of it pretty well, too, and if we ever have emergencies, we call 911 immediately to have them transported to the hospital. I'm still not 100% comfortable with doing charge, but this is how they do it here... a new nurse is trained to do charge in 6 months. I'm glad there's another RN on staff, or I'd be stuck with it all the time. I'd rather not, thank you !

[NYCRN16]

I wouldn't do it. No way in heck are we as new nurses prepared to accept that type of responsibility. Talk about flushing your license down the toilet! It also seems funny to me that the other nurses who have worked on the floor dont want to take a charge position.. Something must be wrong here, dont let them let you hang yourself.