Management hate

[beckster_01]

Blaming all of our problems on our "superiors" is certainly not a new phenomenon, but for whatever reason it has been bothering me lately. Sure, there is some BAD management out there. But are all supervisors made of pure evil? Seriously, is anybody else sick of the disdain for accountability that is so popular in our culture? Don't blame it on "young people." I am 25 and I can see it. It is a cultural problem.

Today I got talked to for a med error. It did not cause patient harm, but was potentially quite serious. I don't know yet if it will lead to a formal write up, but if it does then I DESERVE it! And yet I am capable of not letting it destroy me. There were many circumstances surrounding the error- multiple interruptions in report, 2 extremely unstable patients, an assignment that should have been split, and poor communication with the charge nurse who ultimately ended up caring for one of my patients for the first 4 hours of my shift. But all excuses aside, I deserve to be held accountable for a mistake that I could have caught had I taken two seconds to check my drips correctly at the very beginning of my shift. I am happy to work with my manager to be sure that this doesn't happen again, to me or to another nurse. Because lets be honest, briefly glancing at each of my drips and making sure my bags are full does not count for checking my pumps with my assessment. I know that being sorry isn't good enough, and will do whatever it takes with my manager to make sure my patients stay safe in the future.

From the time I have spent here on AN, it seems that in our culture that we think we are above accountability. Why is "lateral violence" always another person's fault? In my situation, I could be complaining about the meanie charge nurse who caught and reported my mistake. But it would have been irresponsible for her not to do it. Why are so many of our mistakes and shortcomings blamed on leadership? It takes two to start a fight. If someone is rude to you, look at the situation. Were you the one that was careless and deserves a bit of constructive criticism? Are you taking things to personally? Did you do everything possible to follow protocol, wrap things up for the next shift, and prioritize appropriately? Since when are we no longer responsible for our own actions, and our own interactions with other people? If everyone tried for about 5 minutes to walk in another person's shoes, and to see an issue through the lens of another person's eye, then half of the complaints on this website would disappear.

//end late night (and probably incoherent) rant//

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

There is a big difference between accepting a mistake that you did, indeed, make, and being blamed for everything including the weather. There are so many frivolous write-ups at my facility, it brings everyone down, and there is never a thank-you or a compliment. It is middle-management heavy, and instead of helping the staff, they walk around looking for something you did "wrong." Anything to validate their jobs, I guess.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I prefer to have management that gets in your face or talks to you about mistakes. I like to know what I did wrong and how I can fix it. What I dont like is the punitive little crap that they can pull with all the write ups and that nonsense. One of the best things to happen to us is our manager recently demoted herself to charge nurse, which she loves doing now even more, and said she will never write someone up. If she has an issue, she will come talk to you about it. I respect her so much more just from hearing that.

[Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN]

... this culture is very blame - oriented...

Have said it before: Unless Nursing deals with that, it'll never truly be looked upon as a true profession... no matter how many initials we place after our names.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

It sounds like the mistake didn't begin with you and perhaps involved the prior nurse unless I misunderstood. Personally, if no harm was done I would have simply corrected it and moved on, but again I don't know what drip we're talking about and how big of an error it was in dosing and if there was any harm to the patient. Reporting med errors is meant to improve patient care and look at the whole system process to avoid future errors, not to discipline.

[LisalaRN99, BSN, RN]

Great post and not just a late night rant! I, too, made an error involving review of patient lab results. To this day, I do not know what happened to cause me to neglect calling the doctor. The error did reach the patient and caused increased monitoring. I was suspended from work for a day. I deserved it. The part that does bother me, is that I was already looking for a new job when this happened. So when I gave notice, it had the appearance of this incident causing me to quit. It's not the truth. Anyway, what does it matter what people think, right? None of us are above mistakes, and any nurse who claims to never have made one, is just not aware of it!

[Wheels28]

You are very wise and mature for 25. You are the type of nurse I would want to have.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Where I work we use a shared leadership model. So there is a unit manager, who is responsible for finances/budgeting, hiring, firing, disciplinary action and so forth. Then we have four nurse leaders who share tasks such as the orientee program, continuing education, audits, scheduling, etc. The rest of the nurses are encouraged to have some sort of leadership role as well, whether they represent our unit on a committee or take part in unit council. After 1-2 years everyone is oriented to the charge role unless they explicitly don't want it. I am not close to feeling ready for it in the ICU, but when I was working on the floor I was frequently a charge nurse after being there for 1 year. I honestly think that this atmosphere puts things into perspective for everyone. When everyone on a unit understands how difficult leadership is there are far fewer complaints and much more perspective. I really believe that leadership is not a born trait but a learned skill, and maybe if being a leader was more of an expectation in nursing then we wouldn't whine so much? Just a theory anyways...

You have a great work environment...hang onto it for it is the exception and not the rule unfortunately. YOu are the type of nurse I would love to work with.

Your feelings encompass one of my favourite quotes that I found from a friend.....

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted".......Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Chisca, RN]

There were many circumstances surrounding the error- multiple interruptions in report, 2 extremely unstable patients, an assignment that should have been split, and poor communication with the charge nurse who ultimately ended up caring for one of my patients for the first 4 hours of my shift.

So management doesn't staff by acuity, causes chaos in the unit from understaffing and it's your fault? You are right in seeing that it is a chain of events that caused this error but what's to prevent it from happening again? Yes, you are such a bad nurse for dropping one of the six balls they were asking you to juggle.

[Cherry65]

Being in management, this is something that we are focusing on. Accountability and action. If you're interested, check out *The Oz Principle*. I think it is helping a lot of us through our daily lives. Hope this helps :)