Nurse not seeming to care

[Ms Kylee]

I worked with this nurse on Thursday and yesterday. I don't get assigned to her often. Thursday, she rode my butt about the stupidest things. (Did you get them water, did you this, did you that, etc.... YES, I did them.) Thursday afternoon, I'm walking down the hall after punching out and she calls me back to the desk... I'm over half of a hallway away to ask me if I charted I's & O's on a patient. I charted 2 urines in the morning, one at 10:00 and one at 11:00, and then charted end of shift urine and BM. These were in the computer before noon (with the exeption of end of shift I&O). So why was this done when she could have very easily looked in the chart.

Yesterday, same patient. I charted the urines. The patient had two BM's. One was early in the morning, and I changed his bed and cleaned him up. There was blood in the stool, so I put the sheets in a linen bag and left them in the bathroom. I told the nurse there was fresh blood in his stool, a lot of bright red, and I saved the sheets for her to look at. An hour later, I brought the patient more water and I noticed he had had another BM. I got another bed change and cleaned him up and changed his bed. More blood in the stool. Bright red and quite a bit. Again, I changed the bed and put the sheets in a linen bag in the bathroom. Again, I told the nurse about the second BM and I saved the sheets.

Found out at the end of the shift that she didn't even go look at them. The 3-11 PCT was hauling them out of the bathroom as I was leaving. I explained to her why they were there. She told me that the nurse never looked at them.

Was I wrong to just leave them? Or was I concerned over nothing? I feel badly about this because I always take the linen out as soon as I'm done giving baths/changing the beds. I'm so frustrated by this...

[Dolce, RN]

Aides have saved my backside more times than I could count. I am so blessed to work with caring and intelligent individuals, like yourself, who are competent enough to pass on important information.

Sorry you had to work with that nurse. We are not all like that....

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

you were not wrong to save the sheets for the nurse to look at, but toward the end of the shift i would have gone to the nurse and said, "did you ever look at those sheets i saved for you to look at because i'm going to put them in the dirty laundry before i leave." that way they wouldn't have been left for the oncoming pct to take care of.

as far as this nurse riding your butt. . .part of delegating tasks is to follow up and make sure they have been done, so she was not out of line to be asking you these questions. something you can do is to give her feedback to avoid her asking you these questions if they are so irksome to you. when you see her, just give her a short run down of what you have done so she doesn't have to keep asking you. you know her better than i, so you probably know what she'll ask, so just tell her to avoid the inevitable questions. when you get to be an rn, you'll understand delegation better. when you get stuck with a worker who doesn't do their tasks, you learn about follow-up the hard way.

[bollweevil]

You're a great healthcare worker and a gift/blessing to any patient.

Wish there were more like you.

The nurse on the other hand...

we can do without.

Her work ethic grosses me out!

She might very well have checked the bloody sheets. As for asking the aide if everything was done - she has probably worked with a lot of aides who have burned her by not doing everything. We don't have enough information to know if she has a terrible work ethic or not. Please, let's not draw conclusions from insufficient evidence.

[bollweevil]

you were not wrong to save the sheets for the nurse to look at, but toward the end of the shift i would have gone to the nurse and said, "did you ever look at those sheets i saved for you to look at because i'm going to put them in the dirty laundry before i leave." that way they wouldn't have been left for the oncoming pct to take care of.

as far as this nurse riding your butt. . .part of delegating tasks is to follow up and make sure they have been done, so she was not out of line to be asking you these questions. something you can do is to give her feedback to avoid her asking you these questions if they are so irksome to you. when you see her, just give her a short run down of what you have done so she doesn't have to keep asking you. you know her better than i, so you probably know what she'll ask, so just tell her to avoid the inevitable questions. when you get to be an rn, you'll understand delegation better. when you get stuck with a worker who doesn't do their tasks, you learn about follow-up the hard way.

i totally agree.

[Ms Kylee]

Update:

I worked 3-11 yesterday. Patient seems to be more A&O and more talkative. He claimed he was feeling better when I talked to him and did his vitals last night. I worked with a different RN on his case last night, and there was a huge difference.

As for the RN: She was off. I don't work with her often, so I can't really comment on her work ethic or say one way or the other if she is a good or bad nurse. (And I know all of you aren't like this as I work with some really great RN's and LPN's that are totally awesome).

We do have some aides that do have a bad work ethic. I can think of at least two off the top of my head. I was frustrated because I reported what I saw to the RN and throughout the day she didn't seem to be concerned. I felt it was important to report. Most of the time, when I let the RN's know what I have seen, they thank me and go check things out. I'm not bashing her, I don't know what her assignment was like and how she does things. She also had a student RN shadowing her too, so maybe that could be a contributing factor.

I also keep the nurses that I work with updated on things that I have done, especially the baths and blood sugars. While most are grateful, sometimes they do come back and ask if I did these things. I don't mind this. I was frustrated on Thursday because I was yelled at from the Nursing Station to come back to talk to her. I felt that was very unprofessional, especially when she could have looked in the chart.

It wasn't anything bad, I'm just going to chalk it up to two different personalities and not understanding how the other goes about doing things. I don't work with her often, so it was a learning experience.