Nurses: Hospital Red Flags

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Dec 1, 2012

because it means they are under staffed and aren't going to pay you for your time and want to break the law and have you work off the clock.....look at the staff do they "look happy"?

martymoose, BSN, RN · Dec 1, 2012

May I ask, why is this considered a red flag?

because they are prob. so short staffed that one cannot take a lunch, or short staffed/high ratios that one cant possibly finish their job in one 8/12 hr shift, or clocking out and keeping working because they've been bullied by management that they don't allow overtime. Or they make up some crap like" oh , you must have poor time mgmt skills , so we don't pay OT" when it was impossible to sit or pee or chart, or eat because your shift was ridiculous. Always blame the nurse for everything wrong.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Dec 1, 2012

High turnover. Staff is unhappy. Staff suggests that you might not want to work there.

You can look up reviews of companies on glassdoor.com.

Editorial Team / Admin · Dec 1, 2012

A high number of vacancies- why are so many positions unfilled? (Opening a new unit is an exception.)

Obviously unhappy staff.

High turnover. This means that many of the staff on the unit aren't going to be very experienced. If no one has extensive experience, who can the newbies go to for advice?

Not_A_Hat_Person, RN · Dec 1, 2012

It's a Kindred facility.

Most of the staff are related, and you're not.

You are asked 2 illegal questions during your phone interview (true story).

The interviewer mentions that most of the staff has been there less than a year.

It's not a prison or a psych unit, and your interview includes a quesiton about handling combative patients.

netglow, ASN, RN · Dec 1, 2012

Online application question, "Do you have a family member who is an employee? name, title, floor.

Nurse in tears charting at the nursing station.

Floor filled with new grads excepting those with 3-6 months experience lording over the new grads as if they themselves are not. (suggested reading: Lord of the Flies)

Nurse Manager that repeatedly tells you how much the floor and the patients will wear on you, and that she "could not do it".

Same Nurse Manager that says she doesn't think she has any more experienced nurses left to orient you.

Bathroom in the hospital lobby looks like a bad gas station bathroom with papertowels everywhere and years of dirt in every corner.

Meeting with a Nurse Manager who literally is paged 15 times during your 5 minute time with her.

I'll agree that Glassdoor.com is worth gold. I would not have taken a hospice job I had if I had read Glassdoor. I agreed with every review!

Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP · Dec 1, 2012

because it means they are under staffed and aren't going to pay you for your time and want to break the law and have you work off the clock.....look at the staff do they "look happy"?

Oh wow. I didn't even know that was illegal...

They look happy when i talk to them. It's when the topic turns to the hospital that their smiles wipe off and I have yet to meet someone who genuinely welcomes me aboard, they tell me to run. Literally. But I wonder at times why they stay...

Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP · Dec 1, 2012

because they are prob. so short staffed that one cannot take a lunch, or short staffed/high ratios that one cant possibly finish their job in one 8/12 hr shift, or clocking out and keeping working because they've been bullied by management that they don't allow overtime. Or they make up some crap like" oh , you must have poor time mgmt skills , so we don't pay OT" when it was impossible to sit or pee or chart, or eat because your shift was ridiculous. Always blame the nurse for everything wrong.

Really good clarification. Thank you.

Not_A_Hat_Person, RN · Dec 1, 2012

Your orientation is run by the charge nurse, who started 2 weeks ago (true story).

BostonTerrierLover, BSN, RN · Dec 2, 2012

When one of the interview questions is "how do you handle working with overbearing, strong, and difficult personalities?"

FurBabyMom, MSN, RN · Dec 2, 2012

I worked as a neuro med/surg tele RN before going to the OR... Sometimes there are combative patients we'd get on neuro unit - often frontal lobe bleeds or tumors would cause it, though sometimes it was just drugs (bath salts) in patients too stable to warrant ICU level care but not medically stable enough to head to inpatient psych (both the hospitals I worked at as a floor RN had inpatient psych but did not take tele patients or patients that had IV access). Sometimes, though, it was the dementia and/or alzheimers... Though - we all usually joked at neurology/neuroscience units were basically 'Acute inpatient psych' or 'Acute inpatient geri psych' ...

My first job as an RN was with a company I never would have taken the offer from if I knew how things really were. I later found out that the subpoena I saw delivered while waiting in the HR office for my interview was related to an FBI investigation (re: suspected medicare fraud). Three states (facility was at the edge of one state and got a lot of EMS patients from municipalities across state lines as the closest hospital per EMTALA) investigating for misuse of medicaid funds. The DEA, OIG and state bureau of investigation launching an inquiry into whether some of the docs were running a pill mill... You bet yourself I got out of there as soon as I could.

I never though to google my potential employer for news coverage. Had I done that I would have been more informed. But I was a new grad looking for work in a tough economy. All the hospitals I'd went to school near (and had clinicals in) I knew about them well enough to know some pros and cons of each.

Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP · Dec 2, 2012

I worked as a neuro med/surg tele RN before going to the OR... Sometimes there are combative patients we'd get on neuro unit - often frontal lobe bleeds or tumors would cause it, though sometimes it was just drugs (bath salts) in patients too stable to warrant ICU level care but not medically stable enough to head to inpatient psych (both the hospitals I worked at as a floor RN had inpatient psych but did not take tele patients or patients that had IV access). Sometimes, though, it was the dementia and/or alzheimers... Though - we all usually joked at neurology/neuroscience units were basically 'Acute inpatient psych' or 'Acute inpatient geri psych' ...
My first job as an RN was with a company I never would have taken the offer from if I knew how things really were. I later found out that the subpoena I saw delivered while waiting in the HR office for my interview was related to an FBI investigation (re: suspected medicare fraud). Three states (facility was at the edge of one state and got a lot of EMS patients from municipalities across state lines as the closest hospital per EMTALA) investigating for misuse of medicaid funds. The DEA, OIG and state bureau of investigation launching an inquiry into whether some of the docs were running a pill mill... You bet yourself I got out of there as soon as I could.
I never though to google my potential employer for news coverage. Had I done that I would have been more informed. But I was a new grad looking for work in a tough economy. All the hospitals I'd went to school near (and had clinicals in) I knew about them well enough to know some pros and cons of each.

Yikes! Major red flag.