I posted this on the career advice page, but there doesn't seem to be much traffic over there. Sorry if this is long, want to give the whole story. I'm a fairly new RN I graduated in the summer of '07, so I have a year and a half of experience. After school I worked as an RN on a cardiac/tele floor sometimes being pulled to CCU/ICU. A lot of the time I was the charge nurse on the floor and in charge of the rest of the RNs, LPNs, CNAs and the rest of the staff. I was on the code/rapid response team and also trained new employees. I never had any issues at this job, never any verbal or written warnings.
My husband had a job transfer so I had to quit and got a new job as an ER nurse and have worked there for the past 6 months until I was fired last week. The ER I worked in was very busy and usually understaffed (where isn't?). The night of the "incident". Four hours into my shift I got pulled to take a group of 5 patients from a nurse who was getting off for the night. It was a very high acuity group and she was in a very bad mood and gave me a crappy report before leaving.
I had a homeless TB patient who would curse at me every time I went in his room and he wouldn't let me touch him, let alone start the needed IV or take vital signs. He refused to stay in his room and would not wear a mask when he left his isolation room even after multiple call to security to come get him back in his room. My next patient was a quadriplegic who could TALK and not let me out of the room and wanted IV pain/anxiety/nausea meds every 30 minutes. I had a patient who needed admitted to ICU and was on a drip for his blood pressure that required me to be in the room titrating it every 15 minutes, plus he was wanting to sign out AMA, so the Dr, my supervisor for the shift, and I were in his room multiple times trying to get him to stay as he was obviously at high risk for a brain bleed because his pressure was so high. I got a new patient from the waiting room right when i got there who had abdominal pain. We also had no tech, so I was doing the job of 2 people.
OK, here is the story of my 5th patient and the one with the incident that got me fired. She had already arrived by EMS before I took the group from the previous nurse. As I was getting report from her the charge nurse from day shift was in the room triaging her and getting her settled. When she finished she never came to give me report on the patient and put the entire chart over with the Dr, so I didn't even have anything to read about the patient. All I knew was she was having lady partsl bleeding. I left the floor to take one of my patients up stairs to their room and while I was gone she was seen by the Dr and her husband came out complaining that I had not come in after the Dr to start the IV and such. So, the charge nurse (a new one as it was change of shifts) went in and started the IV and whatever other orders for me while I was upstairs. When I got back downstairs she told me that she had got her IV started for me and she should be settled for awhile. I asked her what was going on w/ the patient as I had not gotten any report on her. She said "She's pregnant, lady partsl bleeding, they brought in a container with what she had passed at home, but I didn't look in it, it's sitting in the room." When I went in there was a container inside of a grocery bag sitting on top of the linnen cart that I left there for the Dr to look at.
So, a few minutes later the husband came out and wanted me to check the patient as she felt like she was bleeding a lot. I went in and she had several disposable pads under her, they were relatively clean and I told them she wasn't bleeding to heavily and the pad was still clean. The family asked me a few questions that I answered for them. I had no problems with the family, they were friendly and never complained to me about anything. After getting an U/S and a couple of bags of fluids she was being discharged. I went in, unhooked her IV. The bag still had about 200cc in it, so I draped it over the edge of the sink to drain. She had her bloody panties and shorts in the sink, but on the other side away from where the fluids were draining. I was planning to get her a bag to take them home in as soon as I finished up getting her discharge vital signs and taking out her IV. Well, her pulse was in the 130's, so I told them I would go discuss it with the Dr and be back. Well, to make it short she ended up staying and was waiting to be admitted because they were thinking she had an infection somewhere because her WBC were slightly high and all of the fluids hadn't brought her pulse down. I hooked her to the monitor where we watched her pulse at times hit 160's.
So, at 3AM it was time for me to go home and I gave report to the LPN who was taking over her care. As I was finishing report the husband came out and asked me if I would clean her up again. I told him sure and I would be right in to do it before I went home as soon as I finished up giving report. Well, I ended up getting a phone call about my ICU patient and getting totally detracted with him and forgot to go back in there before I left. So, the husband wrote a letter saying I had no compassion or their loss (she did miscarry), which I feel is totally not true as I spent time in the room talking to them and answering questions about what to expect and such. AND said that the fetus was in the sink and that I placed trash on top of it and left it laying in the sink. If there was a fetus anywhere in that sink her clothes were piled on top of it. The family never said ANYTHING to me about them thinking the fetus was in the sink, neither did the prior charge nurses who had triaged her and provided her care. Nor did they bother to remove it from the sink if they new it was there.
So, I got fired for not properly disposing of a fetus that I knew nothing about. She was not very far along, so it's not like she gave birth to a full term baby that I didn't see. She was only a few weeks along. It just makes me so upset that they think I would leave a fetus in the sink if I knew that it was there. I never thought I would be fired over a patient who I had good rapport with complaining about me. I just figured it would be one of those patients from he** who you can't do anything right with. I consider myself a good nurse, I care deeply for my patients, sometimes crying along side them when they're scared and get bad news. I worked my butt off for that place, usually getting no break longer than to go pee a couple of times even though I'm pregnant. I've gone 15 hours with out eating while pregnant trying to take good care of my patients.
I have had one written warning for not having my charting quite up to par. That night I had a overdose/drunk patient who had already fallen once before EMS even left the bedside along with her drunk boyfriend. Another night that there was no tech or secretary. I called the charge nurse to please come help me, she told me there was nobody to help and hung up on me. But then proceeded to write me up when she had to come take over my patients and not everything was done. She would also be one of the charge nurses who took care of my miscarriage patient. So, I know she didn't speak up to cover my butt.
I'm just curious how I explain all of this in an interview and on resumes. All of the hospitals I am applying to have me fill out an application on line and all want an explanation of why you left each job. I am going to send a grievance to HR to try to get the termination off of my record and possibly a chance to go back to work there until I can fin something else. I have no desire to go back there as I now see how stressed I was and that I haven't even been sleeping because I'm constantly waking myself up talking in my sleep because I'm dreaming I'm still at work! Any advice is appreciated. My biggest concern is how to quickly describe this with out lying on the application so I stand a chance at getting an interview.
Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.
I can not believe they fired you over this...they could have at least asked you what happened and listened to you.....I am tired of nurses not being treated like professionals....why do hospitals believe the patients and families over their employees...they need to do an investigation at least. On top of the horrid shift you were having...believe me i have been there....you were supposed to provide all this emotional support and empathy...the reality is we OFTEN do not have the time but to keep patients alive...so we make a decision for life and do not always support like we can and should. They should have considered this a learning experience and that is all....I believe you were fired unfairly ad i would take issue with it.......what standard of care did you violate...none that i can see...what harm came to the patient...none that i can see
State you left because you didn't like working there. Seriously! Actually write: "did not like the job." If the prospective employer asks you to explain that statement, reply that you feel it is very unprofessional to speak poorly of a former place of employment. Do not tell anyone in your interviews about your getting terminated. Do not tell them anything at all about the circumstances. It's none of their business. I'm so sorry this happened to you. You did nothing wrong at all. I'm sorry for the couple and their loss, but in their shock and grief it sounds like they may have dumped on you because you represented to them what they no longer were--pregnant. If that's the case, shame on them. You have every right to be a pregnant nurse working anywhere you please, even caring for a miscarrying patient. It's not your fault she miscarried. My suspcion is the hospital fears they may sue since people are so sue-happy these days. So the hospital did not stand by you at all, they fired you so they can tell the patient you've been let go, all in hopes there will be no lawsuit. There is nothing to substantiate a lawsuit whatsoever, but hospitals have been nickled and dimed to death with the costs of defending themselves in bogus lawsuits so they try to avoid "customer" disatisfaction by throwing their nurses to the wolves. Trust me, if that couple had complained about the nurse that cared for them prior to you, that nurse would've been fired instead of you. I understood PERFECTLY from your post that you absolutely did not know that the fetal contents were in the sink. You were very clear that you never said anything inappropriate to the couple. You did not know there were fetal contents in the sink until the manager told you about it on the day she fired you. AND...it is the word of the couple that the fetus was in the sink. The last you knew, they were in a container sitting on a cart for the doctor to see. I don't think there was anything in that sink other than what you saw--soiled undergarments. That hospital was wrong to treat you so badly. You sound like an exceptionally skilled nurse to be a relatively new grad. Your next employer will be lucky to get you.
I would still attempt to file for UP. If you can show you were wrongfully terminated to the unemployment office you will get benefits.
i have suggested this to her twice.....her not doing this is one of the reasons i suspect she has misplaced guilty feelings about the whole scenario......
what REALLY gripes me, the OP cared enough to make the doc think twice about sending her home, got her admitted for pete's sake, what more care could the couple have wanted?? i am wondering if it did prove to be an infection and they where feeling even more guilty about it (miscarriage) and lashed out even more?
I'm in a similar situation, but my offense was neglecting to write a verbal order note electronically. I was alone in the clinic and the phones got busy at the end of the day (of course). This particular verbal order had been changed several times due to the pharmacy questioning patient allergies to ordered medication for an H. pylori stomach issue. The doctor was known to have a temper and came in and out of the office sending messages on to the pharmacy under my sign in. I still do not know how that looked! I put the order in correctly but neglected to make the nursing note. The doctor even told one of the nurses that I should not have been fired for that! But do you think he ever wrote me a referral? And he'd always told me that if he had a favorite nurse to work with it was me. My reviews up to that point were good after 2 1/2 years in the clinic. By coincidence, they fired another nurse that they had been horrible to on the same day! I loved my job and I was good at it. I made a mistake. It's been 4 months now, got hired giving Flu shots with a Temp agency (I had one call, who, after I told her I was let go from my previous job say "well, good luck with those flu shots" and hung up!) and worked 11 days at a behavioral health center as the only RN and realized the extent of the reorganization needed and quit. They just plopped licenses in there with no training and no job description. Now I know why they hired me even after I told them why I was fired. I felt like a complete loser. But after reading some of the stories on this sight..., we are not losers--we are human beings who have made mistakes! If there is a nurse out there who has never done so please tell me!
Now I'm back on the computer trying to even get a phone call back. I've gotten advise to say I was down-sized. They hired 2 nurses with no experience (one of which was the daughter of a friend of the managers) I've gotten advise from this site and other nurses I know to be honest. I'm leaning towards honesty. Just trying to get a good way to say it if I get a call back. I'm putting "I would be happy to share upon interview" on the application. I hope this is the right decision. I wish the hiring managers were some of the people on this sight because they seem to realize that nurse's make mistakes, the good one's don't cover the mistakes up. I hope this helps.
I did get let go due to cut-backs just before Thanksgiving and I am getting frustrated at my job search. I have over 10 years exp. and have had only 2 interviews so far. My unemployment hasn't even kicked in yet and I am running out of emergency funds. It is frustrating and scary to see the many jobs posted on the hospital websites and then not to get any call backs.
I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I have been close to getting fired over what a patient SAYS and its definitely a gut sinking feeling. I dont know why management doesnt think that pts lie and have agendas.
I say leave it blank and then explain the situation once you get the interview. Managers will be more sympathetic if you are telling the story in person instead of a few lines on an application......Good Luck:redpinkhe
iluvivt, BSN, RN
2,774 Posts
I can not believe they fired you over this...they could have at least asked you what happened and listened to you.....I am tired of nurses not being treated like professionals....why do hospitals believe the patients and families over their employees...they need to do an investigation at least. On top of the horrid shift you were having...believe me i have been there....you were supposed to provide all this emotional support and empathy...the reality is we OFTEN do not have the time but to keep patients alive...so we make a decision for life and do not always support like we can and should. They should have considered this a learning experience and that is all....I believe you were fired unfairly ad i would take issue with it.......what standard of care did you violate...none that i can see...what harm came to the patient...none that i can see