6 months in LTC...thinking about jumping ship

[FlufferNutter, ASN, RN]

I graduated in May of 2014. I was hired at a local nursing home in November as the "flipper"....to relieve each full time overnight nurse for their weekends off.

The pros?

~Awesome coworkers ( for the most part)on my shift

~getting to know all of the patients on my floor intimately

~gaining much needed practical nursing experience

~Night and weekend differential pay

The cons? ( I really wish there weren't so many)

~too many patients to spend enough quality time with any one of them

~way too much paperwork and busywork that takes me away from patient care

~too many overtime hours being given to full time people who have no business caring for patients with that amount of sleep.

~Certain nurses making mistakes on the regular that EVERY other shift has reported to the manager and DON. Yet no disciplinary action has been taken and this is the person who regularly has 30+ hours of overtime on the books.

~My fantastic aides who regularly work double shifts being forced to stay longer because day shift NEVER shows up on time. (with no apparent repercussions)

~having to continuously get up while I am trying to finish charting/count off/give report at the end of my shift to answer call bells and alarms even though the charge nurse and unit manager are just sitting around chatting.

~The insinuation that my aides are lazy because they have 10 minutes to sit down and complete their charting. God forbid an aide ever be caught sitting down!! Even if they're doing the job that are supposed to do.

I am grateful to have this job, don't get me wrong. It is a lot of work, but I welcome it. As a brand new nurse, I want all the experience I can get. But I feel like I am never going to be successful in LTC. It's depressing. I don't like having to wake someone up just to give them a couple of Tylenol. I think the amount of paperwork is absolutely redundant. Isn't there a more efficient way to get things done, short of adopting an emar? We waste so many hours just to do changeover.....it's ridiculous.

Also, in terms of that "nurse" I was referencing earlier? She is so unsafe. She never does treatments or skin checks, but documents that she does. She pre-signs her MAR. She makes TONS of med errors. She talks down to the CNA's.....apparently she thinks it's above her pay-grade to change or toilet patients. She will literally walk away to find a CNA to do something that would've taken a few minutes. This is not new information for our administration. They know all about it. I don't think there is a nurse or aide in the whole facility that hasn't expressed concern about this person. Yet, she continues to pull at least 40 hours of overtime. Not to mention that she is downright rude to the patients themselves. It's clear in her interactions with patients that she has NO time for them. It's all about the med pass.

Sorry that I digressed. But it pisses me off.

Either way....I have 5 months under my belt at LTC. I have learned SO much. But I feel like the longer I stay in this type of environment, the worse off I'll be.

Any and all advice is welcomed.

[amoLucia]

As attractive as it may seem to move on to another position, there is no guarantee that a second job will be any different, as in any better than your current one. It could be worse (I know, been there, done that).

Acute care hospitals, LTC, HH, etc all have problems. There's just no way of knowing ...

If you feel you must move on, good luck.

[momrn94]

I hope you find something you love. Good luck to you.

[lumbarpain, ADN, RN]

I tend to think most of the public think LTC is a walk in the park type of nursing job.....HONEY IT ISNT and you are absolutely positively correct on all you stated in your letter. I have been doing this for over 20 years....I wanted to get out after 4 years....and tried and spent money then...but times were different then..things happened that were out of my control....thus...I stayed....but.....now I am in the worst nursing home I have even worked in in my life.....lets put it this way.....don't complain about a job until you are at the bottom of the pile....I had wonderful nursing home jobs way back and complained THEN.....and didn't know how good I had it UNTIL NOW....getting older doesn't help it either.....you just have to really think about your plans and what really calls you......only thing that calls me is my bed at night.....so...good luck and I hope you find what you are looking for.

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

I've worked in several LTCs. Every single one employed staff that had been there for decades. That was the core.

Then there were a few of us who were hired and quit. The "core" pretty much made sure that's the way it worked.

You adapted to their way of working, or you quit. Attempts to change things were met with opposition. The "core" had working conditions exactly the way they wanted.

It sounds kind of conspiracy theory, but that's the way I found working in LTC.

If you can't accept things the way they are, I doubt you'll be able to change anything.