LVN need2vent: patient complaint & unfair assignments

[liznrs30, LVN]

Hello everyone!

I'm 6 months in my career as an LVN and I want to vent about my dilemma.

I work the NOC shift and boy did it start out ugly. :eek:First of all beginning of my shift I had to send a patient to the hospital b/c he was low of oxygen, then I had a patient who was re-admitted already from the last shift and was given regular Tylenol bc her medications have not arrived from the pharmacy. I told her as soon as it comes i will let her know.

So hours gone by, i'm trying to finish my charting and could not because I had a very confused patient that keeps getting up from her bed and the aides were busy at the time and i'm doing all i can to prevent the patient from injury. During the shift the CNAs are complaining to me that the charge nurse is way too bossy as i'm in the middle of my med pass. Then another confused patient is trying to leave the facility.

To make matters worse I get a complaint from the re-admit patient saying that i never asked her if she had any pain (which i always do,every shift) and i did not give her Codeine bc the charge nurse told her that we had one supplied in the med room. So i went back to let the patient know we had one supplied and she was asleep and i did not wake her up. Is it right for me to wake up a patient to tell her we had Codeine available? Now she wants to report me to the DON about this.

I was bottling in my anger and frustration bc it was me, the charge nurse(she's also an LVN) and the patient in the room. The patient stated she never got any medication when in fact the nurse from last shift told me he did give and he also recorded time given on the MAR. Am i mistaken for not waking her up or is she forgetful? why would the nurse sign the MAR and the patient states she never got anything? Am i losing it?

To put me on a uncomfortable position, the patient blames me for not giving her pain medication and she rather trusts the charge nurse more and i get the nurse card when she stated, "you are a nurse, you should know how i feel". Now that she knows we have Codeine available the patient does not want to take it right away and prefers to take it in 30 mins. The charge nurse lectures me about pain meds in front of the patient and they start talking in spanish and i just walked away slowly while i continued my med pass. The charge nurse is aware that the patient was sleeping too and the patient stated to us to just wake her up. So 30 mins later charge nurse tells me to give her the Codeine (i thought the patient trusts her and not me) and it was so uncomfortable cause i woke her up and she looked pretty upset (because I woke her up? or I(the confused nurse ) ended up giving her the pain med?) I guess this is a lesson learned I'll wake up the patient anyway when it comes to this.

Has anyone else been in this situation? I've only been working for 6 months and im a brand new nurse. How did you handle it? I want to quit before i put my license in jeopardy. I get 45 short term and long term patients. I get the hectic, busy, unstable assignments while my coworker always has the stable, long term patients ,less meds & accuchecks and hardly ever wants to work my assignments or float with unstable and short term patients. It is unfair and I brought it up to her before but she said no.

Anyone out there ever encounter this? I'm open for advice, thanks in advance.

[dianah, ASN]

Moved to First Year After Nursing Licensure forum.

I have not worked in similar circumstances but I have read a lot on allnurses.com, and without fail the consensus is: the first year in nursing is HARD.

You will gain insights and knowledge and skills as you work, that will make you a better nurse.

You will gain better time management skills.

You will be better able to see through smokescreens thrown up by patients, co-workers, and administration, and be able to negotiate through those.

You will be better able to triage difficult situations: what is most important here? What is really being said? What is being implied? What is the bottom line?

Or be better able to declare yourself not willing to tolerate certain work situations, and will seek employment elsewhere.

Regarding the scenarios and questions you posed in the original post: what eventually happened? Did you decide anything: any change in your practice? did you speak with your manager? Just curious how it all panned out.

Come vent any time (leaving details out of the descriptions please). My gut feeling is, things WILL get better.

[neuron]

Sorry you are experiencing this. This is why I left LTC. It's not a job, it's a death trap.

[Chrispy11, ASN, RN]

Having been in a similar environment as a CNA, I can say the issues you have are pretty common. Residents forget and try to pit employees against one another.

Best thing I can say is to tell the CNAs that you need to concentrate while distributing medication. If the complaining starts, shut it down. I remember a charge nurse telling a co-worker, if they had time to complain, they had time to handle more work. I was embarrassed for my co-worker. This brings me to my second point. If anyone wants to give you feedback about not liking how you handled something, it should be done in private. Never in front of a resident or patient. Never in front of a co-worker. I had this happen to me once. I took my charge nurse aside and said, "Thank you for the feedback. It really helps my professional development. If you ever notice any other areas where I can improve, please let me know in private." I never had a problem like that again.

Hang in there. Just nicely assert yourself. You don't want to be a door mat. People usually appreciate that you deal with them directly if you have a problem with them. Before I say something, I think about how I would want it to be handled if someone was approaching me. Co-worker complaints and disrespect make for a toxic environment. Work is stressful enough without the negativity.

Best of luck to you.