Is it time for this nurse to retire??

[nursenatalie, ADN, RN]

I work nights on a surgical unit. Most of the nurses on the night shift are young but there is one nurse, we will call her Nita, who is in her upper 60's. Well, Nita has been a nurse for 40 years and won a lot of respect from me and the other nurses for her skills. We are beginning, however, to question if it is time for her to hang up bedside nursing. I dont think she has kept up her skills with the acuity level of patients. We often suspect she does not assess her patients until around 2 am, she tries to go by her "memory" as to when to administer patients prn medications, and many other things. We have went to our service director about this and she thinks we are kidding or something. I dont have any concrete evidence to go by as I am too busy caring for my own patients to keep track of her too. What would you do???

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Without concrete evidence that she's unsafe. What does the dayshift say when they follow her? What does the charge nurse say? Documentation is needed.

I hope I can retire by then, but it's doubtful. :)

[nursenatalie, ADN, RN]

heck, she IS the charge nurse half the time...have heard no complaints from day shift. Our dilemma is that we all have these suspicions but no one has found concrete evidence that we can show anyone else. She had a 49 year old pt on post op day #3 who required narcan after receiving 4mg of morphine from her...well we all suspected that she had o/d'd him and had the nurse manager look into it. The NM said that she had withdrawn 4 mg of morphine from pyxis for that patient and Dilaudid for the patient next door within five minutes. As far as paperwork shows there was no error but we believe that she probably gave both meds to this man because even post resucitation he tolerated 4mg of morphine without problems (of course he wasnt immediately given 4mg of morphine but titrated back up to this dose). We all have plenty of circumstantial evidence and all swear we wouldnt let her within 10 feet of a family member but cant get NM to do anything until she is sure she's dangerous!!!!!!!!!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Well keep your eyes and ears open. There have been cases where enough circumstantial evidence is just too much not to be proof. Careful though ageism is a terrible thing. She's been a nurse for a long long time and she's been at it and kept her license for a reason. Good luck.

[NurseStyles]

we have several nurses on our floor in their mid 70s. They are vey efficient. That is a tricky situation. Did anyone ask the pt. who was to have received the dilaudid if in fact he remembers receiving it. When suspicions such as these are made, investigation should be performed immediatly in my opinion. If there are other incidences such as these, a manager should be informed who would be responsible for investigating the situations further.

[RN-PA, RN]

Originally posted by NurseStyles

we have several nurses on our floor in their mid 70s..

HOLY HANNAH! MID 70'S? That's amazing! I'll be happy if I make it in nursing until my mid 50's!

[nursenatalie, ADN, RN]

Originally posted by NurseStyles

we have several nurses on our floor in their mid 70s.

I assure you there was no ageism intended by my post, and I dont mean this to sound that way either but working on a busy floor knocks my 28 year old butt off!!! I would love to be able to physically still do this work in 45 years but doubt it!!! Those nurses must have done some clean living!

[Rustyhammer]

Clean livin' is the secret?

Somebody should have told me that long before.

-R