Nurse gets fired after MD complaint

[RNIBCLC]

After reading this article, it sounds like this nurse had a history of incompetence.

Waterloo hospital fired nurse after concerns about patient safety

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Sounds to me like she needed to be fired long before the doctor complained. Why did it take that for something to be done about her??

[RNIBCLC]

Sounds to me like she needed to be fired long before the doctor complained. Why did it take that for something to be done about her??

I agree. It's does not say much about that hospital if they continued to employ her until a physician threatened to take his patients elsewhere. If I were that physician, I don't know I would seriously consider going elsewhere permanently.

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

Yikes. Sounds like she'd been jonesing for a ticket out of nursing for a while based on her performance. Any one of those mistakes on its own is troublesome. All together, they're grounds for questioning her basic competency.

[caliotter3]

As a brand new grad on my first job, I knew that before I called any doctor, I needed to take the patient's vital signs, as part of an assessment, so I had something to tell the doctor. Wow.

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

It doesn't sound good, but I don't feel like I have enough information to judge the nurse. Some of the statements in the article are just ridiculous ...a patient was discharged after surgery, had a heart attack the next day, and the family believes it's a direct result of the patient's post-op nursing care? How so?

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

At first I didn't think reporting the dizziness before taking vitals sounded like too bad of an error. Then I kept reading. Yikes. But there are three sides to every story...

[suanna]

Be careful before you judge this nurse.

Have you ever had a patient/family make a complaint about your care even though you did everything but jump through hoops to make them happy? Have you ever seen(or been) the employee with a target painted on thier back because someone took a dislike to you and decided you had to go- so everything they do gets picked apart and analyzed? Have you ever had to call that doctor that everyone hates to call because he is going to spend more time jumping down your throat for having the gall to call him than trying to solve the patients problem?(this is so common it should be a class in nursing education). It seems to me that all the random factors alligned to ruin this nurses job. Judging by the article she had some warning that the spit was hitting the fan and she was down wind. If you find yourself on the "needs improvement" side of the yearly evaluations when you have always been a "meets or exceeds" kind of person- GET OUT BEFORE THEY FIRE YOU OR MAKE YOU NUTS. One way or another you are going to be leaving that job- it's better to do it with at your convenience instead of thiers.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Yes, indeed, I have been that nurse with a target on my back because an assistant nurse manager took a dislike to me. She did everything she could to make my life hell the last year I worked at that hospital, and I wound up having a mental breakdown because I couldn't handle it anymore. But at no time was I ever accused of incompetence, nor would I ever have called a doctor without having assessed my patient or taking vitals. Apparently this particular nurse had trouble with the basics of nursing care and that was where the concerns were.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

Common sense she should have gotten vitals before calling the dr, still I can't help seeing this as a power play on the dr's part over past issues and he appears to be a very arrogant dr that becomes angry when you simply call him about a patient. Some dr's just don't want to be bothered and want to take it out on the nurse instead! Also some Dr's are so cheap they don't want you calling the answering service because they don't want to pay for the service. I don't think it is a good idea for a Dr to have that much power esp over the hiring and firing of hospital workers. So much for team work and mutual respect! I wouldn't want to work for a hospital that would fire a nurse just to please a Dr!

The family complaints also sound ridiculous esp blaming her for the patients heart attack and renal failure. She had nothing nothing to do with that!

Thankfully in all the years I've been a nurse there were only a few bad apples (Dr's) that would yell and be nasty because you had the nerve to call them about a patient! Most of my experiences with Dr's have been pleasant and respectful. But surgeons have a reputation for arrogance and being difficult to please and some for having a God complex.

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Seems like this should have been nipped in the bud from day one. This was a nurse who had worked for the hospital for 9 years. Seems like the last couple that things went downhill, but the article doesn't talk about the first 7 or 8 years she was a nurse at this facility.

Don't judge this nurse too harshly, as in fact she was seemingly a successful nurse for multiple years prior to any number of incidents. Incidents which could have looked at changing and improving process.

And I do fail to understand if the MD was screaming on the phone when the nurse called him, (or his answering service) how she could have ever gotten a word in edgewise--and given him a complete update on the patient--nevermind vital signs.

So the quality of care that the nurse gave was just fine--until the MD threatened. As evidenced by just fine performance reviews.

The perception of care/assessment issues could have been handled by giving more education for improvement. I keep going back to the fact that this was a multi-year nurse. If these incidences occured in the last couple of years, then something somehow went wrong recently.

I feel for this nurse.

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

I don't know. I want to side with the nurse but I see some concrete examples of poor judgement. I do hope these allegations are not lies. I was a victim of lies against my practice, and this was during an internship before I graduated. The person who wrote a letter made up bulls--- allegations that made me look like an unsafe nurse, and as a result no one sided with me. I shall reserve passing judgement because I don't know what to believe.