New nurse making job unbearable!

[shelly304]

Well here goes. I have sat on this for a week. I work in a small rural hospital. Many of the staff have worked here for years, some their whole medical career. So as far as new staff coming in, we actually only seem to have new nurses or techs come in a few times a year. When someone does move on it is to take a new a new position elsewhere or retirement.

We had a new grad RN start last jan. She first was in L&D, then ER, and two weeks ago we were told she would be starting in the clinic. I have heard thru the grapevine she has been moved so much because of her inability to get along with staff. And was that rumor on the money!

We have a wonderful LPN, ("Nellie") who has worked for this hospital for 42 years! She is the clinic manager. She is my "go to" for everything. I totally admire her for her nusing knowledge along with my other co-workers. Being the clinic man. it is "Nellies" job to orient the RN to the clinic. In the a.m. before we open to pts., Nellie assigns each of us to a doc or an NP. As assignments are given out Nellie asked new RN to call back first pt. and give allergy shot. New RN looks at "Nellie" and says "I am an RN and you are just an LPN. You give the shots". OMG. Everyone just stood there.....speechless! Nellie had a private chat with her, but nothing has changed. In one week our clinic (we see around 150 patients a day) which is usually a wonderful place to call work, has become a tense, "walk on eggshells", battle zone. RN is constantly finding an LPN to hand off assignments that she feels are beneath her. Her constant comment is "I didn't go to school for 4 years to do this".

PLEASE KNOW THIS IS NOT A LPN VS RN POST. I am looking for ways to handle this personally. I am not someone who deals well with confrontation. So each time she finds me to pass off a pt. etc I just do it to keep the peace.

I know I can't keep doing this. I have almost doubled my pt load during my shift. Everyone says it is a matter of time before she runs out of depts.to be moved to and gets terminated. I think this sad. "Nellie" is trying to guide her in the right direction but she is just as frustrated. Everytime I try to get some backbone with her she reminds me she is the RN!

[RN1982]

She's probably running back to daddy to complain how us big bad nurses don't treat her right. Good grief.

[CHATSDALE]

I'm not very familiar with clinic environments. But how does it work with an LPN supervising the nursing care of an RN? In my state, that is not possible due to scope of practice restrictions. Who does performance evals for the nursing care delivered?

Just curious

i have worked places where an lpn had the job of making out assignments, checking charts behind lpn and rn alike, being a liason between nursing staff and the 'suits' it was not so much that she was a supervisor over the rns this was just part of her job..if there was a shortage the lpn would work the floor and the shift of leadership would ensue

as to the situation that op found her self in there is a name for this, when everything seems to be running on even kneel and everyone is pulling their own weight and you are happy to come to work--something adverse always happens it is called UP JUMPS THE DEVIL

i am glad that this was resolved

[Freedom42]

I can certainly understand how the OP and her co-workers would be fed up with this young woman's behavior. But I also agree with an earlier post: This new nurse behaved in this way because her supervisors let her get away with it -- and even enabled her by transferring her from department to department without taking action.I've supervised a few just-out-of-school workers in the past (not in nursing). I really felt that I owed it to them, if their co-workers complained, to talk with them privately about their behavior and give them a chance to turn themselves around. Of course, if they didn't, they had no one but themselves to blame. But everyone's young and green at some point, and if no one told this woman her behavior was obnoxious, she had no reason to change. She might have been stunned to learn how she was perceived. Why not tell her what the problems are, urge her to talk with her co-workers to make amends, and chart a fresh course? Tell her that that's her only option if she wants to remain employed, and leave the rest up to her. That's an opportunity for growth. It reads to me like she was ganged up on and humiliated in front of her co-workers instead. Her bad behavior does not justify that.Years ago, I worked for a great management team that had virtually no turnover. These were men who'd worked together for years. The funny thing was, several of them had their own legends of bad behavior on the job in his youth. But the boss had seen something in them and kept them on, and they'd become great leaders.

[shelly304]

She had been spoken to in each dept WAY before she was moved to a new dept. If you read my third post I described the meeting as calm and no one raised their voice. This is a person whose ego walks thru the door before their body. She felt superior to everyone. She felt her only equals were the MDs. I don't care what capacity a person works in at a healthcare facility. You never tell a patient "Don't get your panties in wad".

[Freedom42]

She had been spoken to in each dept WAY before she was moved to a new dept. If you read my third post I described the meeting as calm and no one raised their voice. This is a person whose ego walks thru the door before their body. She felt superior to everyone. She felt her only equals were the MDs. I don't care what capacity a person works in at a healthcare facility. You never tell a patient "Don't get your panties in wad".

I don't question your descriptions of her behavior. She sounds obnoxious. But I do question your manager's handling of the situation. I think it would have been more appropriate to meet with each of you privately, then consider a joint meeting. I also question why, if she had been spoken to repeatedly, she was being shuffled from department to department instead of terminated. Your managers essentially told her that her behavior would in fact be tolerated.

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

I have a thing against one person going out of their way to humiliate others, but then crying wolf when being confronted. I can understand you feel that she should have been spoken to privately, but this is a grown woman, and bad behavior should not be rewarded. Even a dog doesn't want to be kicked all of the time. And feeling that she is doing skut work, deferring what is deemed to be below her to the LPN is really inconsiderate. As the OP stated, people spoke to her kindly at the meeting and at times, the best way to deal with a bully is to confront them as a group to try and hold on to the intergrity of that clinic.

[TazziRN, RN]

I know I'm coming in very late in the game, but one way to handle a nurse like that who keeps trying to push off her work on you is to hand her a chart and say, "Okay, you do this then."

[RN1982]

So did she quit for good?

[shelly304]

Yes. I was in the locker-room when she came in to get her things today. In our brief conversation I found out she has never held a job of any kind in her entire life! She is leaving to stay at her family summer home for the season. Weird, very weird.

[Batman24]

Good riddance. I'm glad she quit so all of you can go back to a happy and productive existence at work. She sounds painfully immature.

[RN1982]

That's kind of sad though if you think about it. Her parents probably spoiled her so much that she doesn't even know how to function in the REAL world.

[dorselm]

:yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah: