New Grad as Charge Nurse??

[RebellescumRN, BSN]

Hello all, I have a question about whether any new grads (less than a year) have been made charge nurse at their facility? I currently work at a hospital that has a real problem with retention and on my med-surg unit at night we have no RN's that have been a nurse more than 3 years. Theres about 4 of us new grads (I'm 6 months in). With another one of our more experienced RN's leaving, we are running out of options for charge nurses and one of the newer nurses has already been given some charge nurse shifts. They've now started training me little things that the charge does and I sense I'll be assigned some charge shifts soon. Also at my facility the charge still gets assigned patients. On good days its 3 but they get up to 6 patients about half of the time too.

My questions are:

Can I say no to being charge?

Can anyone whose been charge with less than 1 yr experience tell me how it went for them?

[NorthernNurse BSN,RN]

Well, I've never been charge and I'm a new grad too but at my facility you have to have a minimum of one year of experience to be considered for charge and the charge never takes more than one or two patients. However, one hospital that I was a student at required every floor nurse to get trained as charge and they all rotated which I found really strange but it seemed to work for them. They said that even the new grads get trained as charge after about six months of working. So in that case, I suppose they can't say no to being charge but it sounds like you can. If you don't want to be charge then don't, they can't force you. I can't imagine being charge and having 3-6 patients, that sounds like a nightmare to me.

[ALRN1]

I hit my one year mark last month. I started being put in charge at about 6 months in. Do I like it? No. Do I think it's fair that I'm put in charge over other nurses who have been there for years? No. But on my floor everyone hates being in charge at night and so I'm the one that gets stuck doing it pretty often. I feel like being in charge so soon hindered my learning because instead of just getting to focus on becoming a good bedside nurse, I was given all these extra duties.

I have had some awful nights being in charge. Many times I've been charge and had 6 of my own patients. While the charge nurse has less responsibility at night, it is still stressful knowing you're the one who has to handle any problems that come up.

I have learned to be more firm when I'm assigning patients and the nurse wants to complain about their assignment. I've also stopped taking the first admission like I used to because that always put me so behind. If you assign yourself to be the last one to get an admission, there is at least a chance that you won't get one.

I did email my manager the first time they wanted me to be in charge, because at that point I had only been a nurse for about 5 months. I didn't have to be that time, but after that they made it clear I really had no choice. It sounds like on your floor you might be in the same situation where you have no choice but to be in charge. If you do have to be charge, I would just say to go easy on yourself, don't try to be super-nurse that night, and utilize your nursing assistants well because you will already be busy enough.

[Mavrick, BSN, RN]

I can see why they have a real problem with retention. Poor management.

[elkpark]

My first job in psych out of school, the second shift RNs routinely rotating charge responbilities. I found myself the charge nurse of a 24-bed psychiatric unit about half the shifts I worked, just a few months out of school. It was a good group of people and I had a lot of support. Although I was terrified at first, it worked out fine and was a great learning experience.