I've realize most of all the places I've worked have had high turnover, but my current job takes the cake. In the six months I've been employed here I have seen 10 nurses come and go or reduce their status from full to part time or per diem on day shift alone, nights is worse. I've seen both new and experienced nurses quit while on orientation, or interview and not take the job. A few doctors even jokingly begged me not to leave as that nurses and docs just came and went.
Nurses who just came off orientation who are already proclaiming how much they hate it. The medical residents are stressed and have been openly complaining about their concerns, the attendings are detached. Techs could care less and don't work together.
Staff both RNs and ED techs are burned out from working short which leads to increased sick calls.
I've never seen such a mess of a unit. I'm calling out tomorrow for the 3rd time in 6 months and I feel awful but although its so early in ...I'm tired of being dumped upon. Last few shifts I've had full ICU, intubated patients with at least 7 other ED patients, 2 of which were potential strokes and another possible sepsis.
Equipment doesn't work... 3 of our 4 defibrillators stopped working and still have not been replaced.
Working ED in this town is rough. Less hospitals, terribly high acuity, and atrocious nurse turnover numbers. And yes there have been multiple meetings with administration and on the nightmare goes...
I think I'm sadly thru with bedside nursing after about 9 years. I'm just hoping to stick it out another 6 months here, then hopefully transfer to any ICU adult or peds/PACU or OR/Cath lab heck anywhere but the ed which I really do love. After that advanced practice here I come. It won't be easy but at least it'll be less physically demanding... sigh.
The hospital where I work bleeds staff as well. I've been there for a yea and I kid you not that over 20 people have quit, yet the same management is still in place....
Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.
Hi,
I can sympathize with you. I worked in a fairly busy ER for the past almost 8 years, and I had to quit in December because of the many issues, the main one being i truly felt like my license was at risk because of the poor staffing. Another problem is management refuses to own any issues, and continues to blame nurses for anything that goes wrong. An example of this is that my job review was over six months overdue, which I was unaware of since I was told that I was all set after the assistant NM gave me a review a few months prior telling me I was all up to date (That was the review that was a year overdue apparently!). The job is only per-diem so I will be honest, I hardly paid attention to reviews and raises. The nurse manager wrote in my evaluation that it was my fault that my review was overdue (this after I told her that the previous assistant NM told me I was all up to date on everything). I politely corrected that of course. My niece was also in the PICU for a couple of weeks, i called to ask if I could take half a night shift off since I was lacking in sleep. No empathy showed I was told I needed to start calling people to work for me ( keep in mind I was in the middle of a PICU), then I was told I need to do it by email if I could not call them. I called my ambulance job and said the same thing on a different day and was told OMG I am so sorry, I hope your niece is ok, no problem we will take you off the shift! Amazing what a difference in management can make!! Those are only a few examples of poor management and a refusal of those managers to take ownership of any issues that occur with staffing or other! They have lost so many nurses over the past few months that they have critically low staffing and told a nurse whom they had already approved days off for so that she could have her scheduled surgery, that she needed to cancel her surgery or be fired!!
They just don't get it, I am not saying you can please everyone all the time, but when you put forth zero effort to do so people leave! Sounds like your management is also a big problem and until that gets fixed it is hopeless. You are better off finding a new job to be honest! I hung in with this ER for years and it only paid off with experience, that place was so stressful I only lasted 2 years out of nursing school full time before I ran like the wind back to the ambulance and went per-diem as a nurse.
Sorry for rambling. I hope things get better for you!
OP--I recently got an offer from some place that sounds very much like where you work (sorry if I'm being creepy, based on descriptions of population/area, massive loss of staff and the problems they mentioned during my interview it sounds like a match)...I haven't been able to find anyone who can give me a straight answer on what they think about working there. I want er experience (new grad) and had reservations about the offer--this is making me strongly reconsder.
OP--I recently got an offer from some place that sounds very much like where you work (sorry if I'm being creepy, based on descriptions of population/area, massive loss of staff and the problems they mentioned during my interview it sounds like a match)...I haven't been able to find anyone who can give me a straight answer on what they think about working there. I want er experience (new grad) and had reservations about the offer--this is making me strongly reconsder.
The hospital where I work bleeds staff as well. I've been there for a yea and I kid you not that over 20 people have quit, yet the same management is still in place....
Things that make you go hmmmm??
Some places just refuse to acknowledge that poor leadership is the problem. Where I work, one single unit had two day nurses and two night nurses all quit THE SAME WEEK. The manager asked the last one to hand in her notice if they had all planned it. She said no, that they had all just started looking, gotten interviews, and gotten offers during the previous month to six weeks, and hadn't even talked to each other about the fact that they were looking. (The nurse in question related the convo to me when I asked what the heck was going on with the unit.) This unit is only about three years old and these nurses had been there since it opened. They approached their manager over and over again about serious practice and safety issues, only to be ignored and put off. When they started not being able to ever get approval for time off on top of that, they all started looking, and then left.
And that manager still has her job. It just floors me. I like where I work but I sure do question the wisdom of some of the higher ups at times.....
Thank you for the offer - I visited again and ended up turning it down. They quoted me a caseload of 1 nurse to 10-15 patients (sometimes more), and my second visit was pretty chilling - three patients squeezed into a one bed unit with so little space people couldn't actually get in to give care, no leadership (even they were bailing) and barely any staff nurses (they said they ran on per diem when people actually accepted shifts) not a good sign for me. I think if I were a little less green I'd see it as a challenge but as a new nurse it looked like someplace I wouldn't have the support I need to deal with such a chaotic environment.
lilibelle
8 Posts
Thank you SO much for this!