New nurse questions

[LeeL]

I got hired as a new grad at a psych hospital. I was suppose to be shadowing another nurse. She has made me take on pretty much everything since day 1. On my shadow day 5 - I was assigned 17 patients. I had one MHT who didn’t do anything really Other then observe. She was suppose to at least “baby sit” me when I go in patients rooms but she refused, so I had to call the house supervisor to monitor me doing CIWA and COWS.

I wanted to know is it normal to have 17 medically complex psych patients, do intakes, pass meds to them all, assess them all, do paper charting on all of them, correct the day shifts errors in reports, and do treatment plans for not only nursing but the psychiatrists as well? I also had to do 3 - 15 min rounds to let the tech have a break, I didn’t get a break other than lunch. I also had to cover the techs lunch break so that’s another 30 minutes

For intakes the house supervisor watches my area. The intake can be from any part of the hospital. I’m responsible for their first shift paperwork even when I don’t watch them.

I feel we are way under staffed and if something were to happen and I needed back up I may have only one person show up. Is that normal? A few nights we were so under staffed we didn’t even have a house supervisor.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

It depends on the policies where you work. My firsy question would be what do you mean by medically complex psych patients. I need to know this so I can determine the normalcy of your assignment!

[LeeL]

They have other illnesses like CHF, advanced liver disease, and other advanced med Surg type illnesses where they would be in a med Surg unit but the mental illness aspect has placed them in our facility so they are not continually restrained for their behaviors and so they receive care they wouldn’t do if left on their own. So it’s like med Surg psych. But even in med Surg I never had over six patients of this kind.

[Katyma25]

I am looking for work as a new grad and it’s been a challenge where do you suggest I apply

[Stillcrazyafteralltheseyears]

It sounds like a normal day to me.

[Robo55]

On 4/29/2020 at 3:28 AM, LeeL said:

I got hired as a new grad at a psych hospital. I was suppose to be shadowing another nurse. She has made me take on pretty much everything since day 1. On my shadow day 5 - I was assigned 17 patients. I had one MHT who didn’t do anything really Other then observe. She was suppose to at least “baby sit” me when I go in patients rooms but she refused, so I had to call the house supervisor to monitor me doing CIWA and COWS.

I wanted to know is it normal to have 17 medically complex psych patients, do intakes, pass meds to them all, assess them all, do paper charting on all of them, correct the day shifts errors in reports, and do treatment plans for not only nursing but the psychiatrists as well? I also had to do 3 - 15 min rounds to let the tech have a break, I didn’t get a break other than lunch. I also had to cover the techs lunch break so that’s another 30 minutes

For intakes the house supervisor watches my area. The intake can be from any part of the hospital. I’m responsible for their first shift paperwork even when I don’t watch them.

I feel we are way under staffed and if something were to happen and I needed back up I may have only one person show up. Is that normal? A few nights we were so under staffed we didn’t even have a house supervisor.

Find another job. Your putting license on line.

[B52, ADN, BSN, MSN, RN]

This is not normal. At my workplace, we have a 17-patient mood disorder unit. When the census is full, we have a minimum of 2 nurses and 1 tech.