Nurses pulling rank on assignments

[remotefuse]

So Ive been working in the ICU for about 4 months now, and am still getting used to the this new environment and how the nurses work together.

Well there was a very sick patient that had been deteriorating for several days now. Very complicated pt that was assigned to someone with a lot of experience in ICU, but only in this unit for about 2 years.

Well I overheard this nurse asking the charge if she was going to have the same assignment for the next day, and the charge replied, "you should as long as someone doesn't pull rank."

I thought that was sooo weird. This nurse had been doing a good job at taking care of the patient for 2 days. Why wouldn't she get the same pt back?

Is this someone you guys come across at all? I would be pissed if I was taking care of the same assignment for 2 days, and had to switch for my 3rd.

[aflahe00]

Normally I'd prefer to keep my patients but there's been few times where the patient was so draining in every way possible that sometimes you gotta share the load lol help each other out when **** gets to be too much and let someone else handle them for a shift.

[Tneo8385, BSN, RN]

I worked with a nurse once that would pull something like this, she would come in and would complain about her assignment until she was given a slightly easier assignment, I will say though, that when it came to something hitting the fan and a code having to be called she was always there to bring her 30+ years of experience. Sometimes she knew more than some of the residents that were on overnight. It was kind of funny to watch because most of the night she would just drag along, but something clicked soon as a code blue was called she was like a different women, so I think we started to let her get away with the easier assignments. Then on the same unit I had a senior nurse take the assignment I had for two nights and give me hers because she felt that she needed a break and my assignment was easier than hers. Granted she was very busy for the two nights, I was upset but I didn't put up a fight. The three patients she had that were given her a hard time gave me the opposite. They slept all night and needed much of nothing for me. My three patients that she had well lets just say had her running all over the place, one went crazy pulled out his Foley and NG tube, while one had low blood pressure issues, and the last one coded on her. I felt bad because I didn't help out when I saw her running around until the code happened because I was bitter that she did that to me, but I guess she helped me out in the long run because it could have been me that had the bad night and was there three hours after I was supposed to be off. So sometimes coming in and having your assignment changed is not always a bad thing.