I'm looking for advice. A nurse who recently passed her state boards was hired as a charge nurse. Within 30 days she was fired.
The job description required experience, and yet the facilitity who knew she had recently graduated and had no experience, still hired her.
She can not think of any other reason they fired her after her 30 day evaluation period, except that on one occasion she did not check the the peg tube patency before administering medication, ( she had been being observed by the evaluation nurse.
She had done the procedure properly prior to this particular occasion when she forgot to check for peg tube patency.
She called the nurse who evaluated her and the nurse evaluator said that she had no idea she had been fired.
Further information given to the new nurse was that she was fired because she did not have enough experience.
Why hire her knowing she had no experience without giving her adequate time to learn.
30 days is not alot of time.
Now she needs a job. How should she approach applications? Does she put down she was fired after 30 days ?
I feel bad for her. I think that the facility hired her until they could get an experienced nurse for the position.
This facility is known for going through RN's quick ( they Quit). She was in charge of LPN's who cared for for alzhimers / dementia patients.
Specializes in neuro, m/s, renal, ortho, home health.
I am sorry to hear about the new grad being fired. True, she should not have accepted the position and the hospital should not have offered it....but we also don't know what the hospital, unit manager or anyone else told her about the position. They may have promised to do more 1 on 1 training etc. I recently accepted a travel assignment in OK and only worked 2 weeks because the job was completely misrepresented. I realize traveling is not the same as a permanent position but we all know at times another picture is represented if they really want you to accept the position. As for the new grad, I would not list it on my resume. In the next interview I would ask how many weeks of orientation is given, number of patients to each nurse, etc. I was on a neuro floor (my 1st job) and received 3 months of orientation. The entire 3 months was not one on one but I had complete access to my mentor at any time! This is the only thing I viewed as being good about this hospital, other than most of the staff and my manager. There are plenty of jobs out there. Some travel positions even accept new grads. I hope she will remember she is in demand and can be very cautious about any position she accepts.
Good luck to you, and don't let this get you down! We need all the nurses we can get!
I'm sorry Jess that you felt an "ouch". I really am. Did not mean to make you feel invalidated or put down. Sometimes (honestly : ( ) I don't get my points across very well. I usually put my foot in my mouth a lot. I just meant by the fact as you mentioned being an older grad that your life experiences would have warned you to back off of something as this. As OKTRAVELNURSE just mentioned we really don't have all the particulars and I was making a lot of assumptions. Still assumptions that I hope are more correct than not. I only hope this young nurse learns positive things from this unfortunate experience and can keep her head up and remain in nursing and do well. I wish her and you the best. Again, sorry for "ouching" you!
So Sorry you were fired. Not sure why you really accepted the charge position perhaps you had been an LPN was my first thought but LPN's know to check TF. Perhaps you were a liitle zealous, if so we can all understand that. Don't beat youself up, shake the dust off and look for an good Graduate Nurse position. I know you passed boards so what?, you owe it to yourself to gain real world training. Nursing school only goes so far afterall there are many areas hospital administration do not allow students to fully participate in. Just a few thoughts:idea:
Specializes in ICU, SDU, OR, RR, Ortho, Hospice RN.
If I were her I would put this down to a learning experience and move on. Find a job where she will get good preceptorship and the experience will come after that.
I think the facility is more at fault in this situation if the new grad didn't misrepresent her/himself.
Newbies often don't feel truly ready for ANY position and have to have faith that the facility wouldn't hire them if they didn't think they'd be able to be successful. When the newbie is experiencing doubts about their ability to be a successful nurse, they often have nothing more to go on than "the school thought I was good enough to pass, the state thought I was good enough to give a licence to, and the facility thought I was good enough to give a chance to."
The facility was wrong to claim "inexperience" as a reason for letting the nurse go if they indeed had an accurate representation of the person's experience. If they felt that person wasn't picking it all up quickly enough, then THAT's the reason. And it's also true that it would be unlikely for ANY new grad to pick it up that quickly. If the newbie argued that she was different and more prepared than other new grads and fought to be given a chance, then that's one thing. If the facility didn't express any hesitation to hire a newbie into such a position and maybe even encouraged the newbie to take the position despite the lack of experience, then I can't fault the newbie too much for taking on the position.
I can imagine this is the kind of situation where a cautious and consciencious new nurse would be less 'successful' than someone who just gets things done without thinking too much about if it's the 'right' way or not. And who's going to catch their mistakes if there are no obvious signs of problems? So the right papers are signed and all looks well. Meanwhile, the more cautious newbie is going slow, checking everything twice, asking questions, not getting everything done, and may comparatively look less 'successful' than someone else might.
They probably just hired her out of desperation and then found a better applicant.
From the sounds of the original post, she was working in a LTC facility. They are notorious for "hiring out of desperation" so they don't have to use pool/travel nurses during a vacation/illness/maternaty leave/etc. Then they let that nurse go when their staff returns. Been to that dance before! Chalk this up to a case of "nurses eating their young" and move on to a larger facility that has more checks and balances regarding hire/fire policies. As for taking a travel assignment right out of school, DON'T DO IT!!! Those facilities need help for a reason and they will throw you under the bus FIRST, give you the worst assignments and all with minimal (maybe one or two shifts) orientation. Don't risk your new license on that type of position until you are more comfortable as a nurse.
I have been an RN for 15 years and just got fired after being on the job for 5 weeks. The position was at a rehab/nursing home and my first job outside of a hospital environment. There was no orientation. They just threw me on a medication cart and I administered medications non stop for 12 hrs. I learned quickly from others nurses borrowing from Peter and giving to Paul was standard when a pt had ran out of their medicaiton. To make a long story short I ran out of Norco on a pt who received 7.5 every four hours. I notified my Unit Manager that ( Mr. Green )was irate his Norco was out. She took norco from another pt in the norcotic box, took it to her office, and brought me the card back after changing the label to MR. Green. She told me to keep my mouth shut about it. At the end of my shift I told the oncoming Nurse what the supervisor did. The oncoming nurse reported it to the AON and the supervisor and myself got fired............Why me? They said I was an accessory to a norcotic crime........Go Figure.....I was afraid to report my supervisor when I was still on my probation period. In the past I have learned not to go above the chain of command when you are the new kid on the block. Sometimes in nursing there is a lot of grey areas and it just depends on who you know to determine what reaction follows an action. Sucks doesn't it.......
YEP YEP...I feel you I just got "let go" from LTC & Rehab Facility...Because I opened my mouth too much...Same stuff was going on there...I realize now..as being the new one..I should have kept my mouth shut about a lot of stuff till I got "in there"..Even though it was wrong..."borrowing" and such..Everyone were snitches...and I got the boot for it..AMAZING!!
Honestly, my first thought was that she lied on her app...Clearly if they were precepting her like a new grad then they knew she was. Either way, something's up when a facility would do that. No critical thinking, no spur-of-the-moment decision making skills...not to mention the complete lack of expertise in the field of nursing, which I believe is required when making decisions such as assignments and the like.
Either way, there seems to be a little more to the story. Keep your nose clean and be sure you are who you say you are...that's about it.
I'm thinking they let her go for lack of experience. Maybe during the interview she made herself look capable of the job, but in actuality she wasn't, and the employer recognized that. Whoever interviewed her probably wasn't thinking things through or was not experienced enough to be interviewing.
oktravelnurse
55 Posts
I am sorry to hear about the new grad being fired. True, she should not have accepted the position and the hospital should not have offered it....but we also don't know what the hospital, unit manager or anyone else told her about the position. They may have promised to do more 1 on 1 training etc. I recently accepted a travel assignment in OK and only worked 2 weeks because the job was completely misrepresented. I realize traveling is not the same as a permanent position but we all know at times another picture is represented if they really want you to accept the position. As for the new grad, I would not list it on my resume. In the next interview I would ask how many weeks of orientation is given, number of patients to each nurse, etc. I was on a neuro floor (my 1st job) and received 3 months of orientation. The entire 3 months was not one on one but I had complete access to my mentor at any time! This is the only thing I viewed as being good about this hospital, other than most of the staff and my manager. There are plenty of jobs out there. Some travel positions even accept new grads. I hope she will remember she is in demand and can be very cautious about any position she accepts.
Good luck to you, and don't let this get you down! We need all the nurses we can get!