Nurses not caring

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

What is wrong with people these days? I work with nurses who make a multitude of med errors..they simply don't care. IF they have any reaction at all it's "How is this going to effect ME??" give 7 ativan instead of oxycodone and your first thought is you??? I'm so glad I only have a few years left before I retire.

And, while we're on the subject: Doc orders Keflex 500mg by mouth every 8 hours. Nurse transcribes it...give at 9pm and 9am. Second nurse ( we have to have two nurses sign every order) signs it. 24 hour chart checks done...no one picks up on it. Are people really that stupid these days? I'm at a loss for words.

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Hi CapeCodMermaid,

I can understand that an error can happen initially: as you so well know, sometimes a nurse is interrupted while entering orders.

Last time I was entering orders gradually decreasing lamictal while introducing depakote and then gradually increasing the depakote, I was interrupted 5 times. Three of these interruptions resulted in me having to leave the desk. It took soooo long to complete this order set because of the checking and rechecking.

So I get that there can be a data entry error. There really needs to be safeguards in place for this. And in your case, this sounds as if this has obviously failed. My facility has a management meeting every morning in which the DON, ADON and various department heads go over charting, faxes, MD communications, etc. They write up a report and send it back to the floor nurse for corrections/family notifications and follow up. Yay! I wonder if it takes longer to write the report than to just fix the issues? :) I wish that we floor nurses had a desk away from the melee (can't remember the proper clinical name for the group of people we serve and work with) so we aren't interrupted so much. Med passes are crazy with interruptions as well. Any Tom, Dick or Harry (familymember/phone call/page/PT-OT/Environmental/PlantManagement) can interrupt this process. Ugh!

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I meant to add that I care - it's just difficult sometimes.

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Yes, certainly understandable how initial errors can happen, but it is disappointing when safegaurds fail. I especially feel like this as a nurse who has made mistakes with entering orders and the 2nd and 24 hour chart checks did not catch my error! We are all at risk for not paying attention/ getting distracted and therefore either making errors or missing something when we are the checker. the big difference here seems like these nurses do not care at OP's facility. I can't imagine. I did an admit on hour 10 of what was supposed to be an 8 hour shift last night and I worried all night about if I put the orders in correctly. Nurses should be holding themselves to higher standards. It's not good to work with people like that. how frustrating is that?!? we know we aren't perfect and we need to think of how to reduce errors. Nobody needs to completely lose their cool when an error occurs but some caring would go a long way.

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Specializes in Mental health, substance abuse, geriatrics, PCU.

I see this where I work as well both with the nurses and the CNA's. It's so frustrating when people have such a crappy attitude, I don't understand why some people can't take pride in what they're doing. Nursing is so much more rewarding when you clock out knowing you did everything you could to take adequate care of your residents.

I have CNA's that will refuse to answer call lights, refuse to change people, and when you call them out on their bull **** they either say "I don't care." or report you for being "confrontational". Oh and of course there's the "I didn't have time." excuse even though they sat on their fat butts playing with their cell phone or went out to smoke 500 times.

I am fortunate that I do have shifts where the nurses and aides DO care and work together as a team to take excellent care of our residents. Man, I love those shifts. If only we could find a way to inspire some of the less motivated staff to look beyond themselves and take pride in what they do.

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I just dont' understand why these people that don't want to work and don't have time are still working?

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