Nurse on your floor with narcotic restrictions

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Hello all,

I am a nurse who made a stupid mistake of having illicit substances in my system four years ago. The Board of nursing got ahold of me after three years and gave me a two year consent agreement with a six month narcotic restriction. I finally found a job after a year of rejections and humiliation. I have and will continue to pay for my stupidity.

My question is this:

My position is with a physician owned hospital on a surgical recovery floor. Obviously my patient's number one issue will be pain control. I cannot pass these medications for six months.

Please give me advise on how I can plan on making this work? Taking on the tasks that nurses don't like to TRY and make up for the burden of medicating my patients?? Getting up for every call light I can. Positive attitude.

I am sure that I will be a royal PITA to my new coworkers and am trying to come up with every angle to make this doable. Please constructive advise only. I have torn myself up for years over this. Disappointed countless coworkers. Lost out on finishing my NP. Lived with shame and self hatred. I am finally seeing a light and the tiniest bit of hope of being a useful healthcare provider again.

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Specializes in Adult Primary Care.

I'm not sure what would be helpful because I'm not in the hospital anymore, but I wish you well. Congratulations on the new job. I hope your new co-workers will be understanding.

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I think there should be a plan in place spelled out on the daily assignments so that your co-workers do not resent the burden of passing your narcotics.

For example, "Sally" is going to be assigned to cover narcotics for room a, b and c, "John" covers rooms x,y and z.

In turn, you should have tasks to cover on their patients planned into the assignment. Maybe a dressing change, PEG feeding, or something so that they can plan it into their day and see upfront that they are getting relief from something in exchange for the added responsibility.

Answering more call bells is great, but what happens when you have a crazy, busy day and it's all you can do to attend to your own patients... and everyone else is crazy busy but they still have to pass your narcs?

I think it's great the unit has given you this opportunity to work thru this restriction. And you seem to be sincerely grateful. That will go a long way in keeping good relationships with your co-workers.

I wish you the best!

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Specializes in Orthopedics.

I'm a new grad nurse interested in orthopedics but I have had some friends in your situation so I thought I'd drop by and offer my advice for what it's worth.

It sounds like you are beating yourself up over your past. I'm not gonna pretend to understand since I have not personally been there. But I say that if you are honest and if you are good at what you do then your co-workers should understand. Own it and keep moving. You seem really smart and self aware. And congratulations on your new job. They would not have given it to you if they didn't think you'd be good at it.

But just in case you have trouble: Some of the friends chose to work at places like a treatment center. If there is anyone that understands people trying to get better after past mistakes it's an employer like that. You may wish to consider working in this field for a little bit while you are still on a restriction..

Edit: also, a big YES to attitude.. Your attitude is everything.

Best of luck and even though I'm just a tiny baby in terms of my career, I believe in you.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Duplicate threads merged.

We moved your thread to the Nurses in Recovery forum. Many here can offer supportive advice.

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I don't know if this is feasible but occasionally, staffing permitting of course, we have a "float nurse" who just watches the computer EMR boards to see if there are new orders and goes to every/all rooms to do whatever is ordered and not yet done. It would be ideal if you could be that "extra" nurse that wouldn't have rooms assigned to you. Your manager would have to set this up though.

Or you could have a set list of tasks that are yours. You could do all discharges, discharge vitals, dc the IV, helping the patient to dress if needed, discharge teaching, walking/wheeling the wheelchair out to the parking lot. I've not worked post op but I assumed you also need the first set of vitals. When a patient is rolled in from OR you need to hook them up to the monitors, get the first set of vitals. The initial paperwork. There's a lot that is required beyond narcotics but you're absolutely right, pain meds are a huge priority, so I would suggest trying to set up an official set of tasks that you will take care of for all patients.

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Plan ahead... whoever makes your assignment needs to keep this in mind. I don't know if you ever have some nonsurgical patients or patients who haven't been asking for much pain meds. Would it be easier to have patients who might be on a PCA pump as opposed to someone on a Q 2 hour IVP med, etc. Tell them you don't mind having patients aren't aren't physically close together.

This is better than trying to make it up to everyone constantly. You won't be able to make it up to everyone all the time. You'll be busy too.

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