Nurses are not "allowed"

Nurses General Nursing

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:madface: I was just reading the reminiscing thread and one of the posts was stating something about how the nurses had to stand up when a DR. walked into the nursing station.

Welll...Get this. We have a brand new nursing unit with a nursing station. The nurses station has a long desk with approximately 5 computers. 2 are for the secretarys, one is for the charge nurse.

Behind the desk there is a thin area that houses pt. charts, med. teaching sheets, fax machine, printer. Adjacant to that is our tiny little med room with both of our omnicells. Put this way, it's a good thing noone is too large.

Anyways, then there is a room adjacant to the nurses station. A nice beautiful room, lots of shelves, at least 7 computers, nice computer space. I think you get the picture. I though we were quite lucky to have such a great room for charting. But noooo, that room there is for the "doctors", so if we are found in that room by a Dr. then we need to leave and search for a computer elsewhere.

I feel that it is really quite demeaning to the nurses and aides that work on the floor to have basically nowhere to chart. It's a thorn in my side!:madface:

Specializes in ED.

Thank God, we have a good nurses station. One meant for everyone. If we are not doing anything pressing or if its the doctor that is seeing most everyone on the floor that weekend day then we give them the room to work at that computer but for the most part we each get our shot at the computer.

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It sounds like you guys all have halfway decent nursing stations and along with that, respect. I work in a small hospital (140 beds) and it feels as if sometimes that the nursing staff is second rate to the Dr's and the other disciplines as someone else had mentioned.

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It sounds like you guys all have halfway decent nursing stations and along with that, respect. I work in a small hospital (140 beds) and it feels as if sometimes that the nursing staff is second rate to the Dr's and the other disciplines as someone else had mentioned.

Every time I see "I work at a small hospital" and then see how many beds, I have to laugh. ;)

We have 14 beds, 2 beds to a room and one of the rooms is saved for our post-partum moms.

Our nurse's station is the only place available for anyone to come to do anything with the patients. I don't feel it is exclusively just for nurses. When the docs are rounding, we are usually passing meds and don't even need to be in the station and our charting can certainly wait until after med pass at 8 a.m.

Most of the docs stand and chart on the outside of the nurse's station and one doc sits at one particular station (only one computer at the back of the station that we chart meds in ONLY). We all (docs, nurses, dietary, p.t., social work, discharge planner, etc.) chart with a pen on paper.

Since we all care for the patients, I'm not sure why all of us can't have access to the charts without getting into a pi$$ing contest about whose space this is.

steph

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

We have an ample supply of portable laptops, computers set up in the nurse's lounge, and 3 computers available at the nurse's station. All they ask is that we leave one certain computer at the nurse's station clear for the docs to use when they're around. Sounds reasonable to me.

The OPs situation however, sounds awful. Talk about being treated like a second class citizien.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

We have a doctors room just off the nurses station. It's not a big deal to us. They have computers, to look up labs and a lot of Xrays are now online as well. There are several phones because they use it to dictate. They deserve a quite area away from the noise to dictate and write orders.

The doctors area isn't any nicer or bigger than the nurses station. And it's not necessarily off limits to nurses. What is nice is a doctor wants to use and area outside their area we can say "no, you need to go to the doctors dictation area and sit". :)

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
Since we all care for the patients, I'm not sure why all of us can't have access to the charts without getting into a pi$$ing contest about whose space this is.

steph

Steph, my unit is 3 times bigger than your entire hospital. You get 10 nurses and techs,10 students, doctors (who don't conveniently come during our med pass but all day and evening) and a social worker, a case manager, an insurance company, pt, ot, st among others, it's is a big deal to have some organization as to who goes where, and to have some limits set. I can't tell you how often I wonder around looking for an open space to sit and chart. Several of us take our mobile computers down the hallway just to get away from the maddness. It's something you can't appreciate from your standpoint. Just the other days I was in the middle of the nurses station "JUST ONCE I WOULD LIKE TO FIND A CHART I NEED! OR A PLACE TO SIT DOWN AND DOCUMENT!". (Not a major hissy fit, more of a vent). Your work environment sounds like Nirvana to me. :lol2:

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

We had this problem years ago. You know that cubicle furniture company Herman Miller?

Well while the HN was on vacation a couple of us kind of unhooked and reconnected the panels. Of course there were limited computer connections on a certain side (not the nurses'). We made up for it by having individual dicataphones in each of their new cubbies. We put a coffee pot there and guess what? We got away with it for nearly 10 years.

I'd really love to see a 4 hour "blue flu" (pink?) wherein the doctors and med students were left on their own. Fantasy I know.

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Steph, my unit is 3 times bigger than your entire hospital. You get 10 nurses and techs,10 students, doctors (who don't conveniently come during our med pass but all day and evening) and a social worker, a case manager, an insurance company, pt, ot, st among others, it's is a big deal to have some organization as to who goes where, and to have some limits set. I can't tell you how often I wonder around looking for an open space to sit and chart. Several of us take our mobile computers down the hallway just to get away from the maddness. It's something you can't appreciate from your standpoint. Just the other days I was in the middle of the nurses station "JUST ONCE I WOULD LIKE TO FIND A CHART I NEED! OR A PLACE TO SIT DOWN AND DOCUMENT!". (Not a major hissy fit, more of a vent). Your work environment sounds like Nirvana to me. :lol2:

I think the attitude permeates nursing wherever you work though. My "nirvana" still elicits comments from nurses about the nurse's station being too busy from 8-9:30. Dietary is in the charts, the docs have the charts, there is a multi-discipline meeting at 0900 with nurses, one doc and d/c planner, DON, etc.

We don't chart by computer. We all need the same chart. The labs are only found in the chart. The xray report is only in the chart. The EKG is only in the chart. Etc.

We have long periods of time where we don't do anything!!! After our initial patient assessment at 4 a.m. we usually have our assessments charted by 5 a.m. at the latest and then not much to do until 0630 blood sugars or 0730-0800 po meds. We sit and chat at the nurse's station, we eat, we read magazines or books.

And still nurses complain about too many people at the nurse's station during rounds. And we've had nurses do just what you did.;)

I realize I'm still in "Nirvana" though. ;)

steph

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UGH...why do we put up with this crap. I for one will not get up for an MD...if he asks for vital signs and I am doing something else then I will kindly tell him that they can be found outside the patients room in the door chart....if he wants to know where something is then I will tell him so that he knows next time...I work in a very busy LTACH and it amazes me how some nurses bend over backwards to do EVERYTHING they can for the MD's...writing verbal orders when the doctor is sitting right next to them...until we stop allowing them to treat us like second class citizens then things will never change.

LOL, bones!! I won't get up for them either - one day one of the PC nurses suggested that I allow Dr. X to have my chair - I told her Dr. X was a lot younger than I was and he could stand at the counter like everyone else.

Also, if I'm using a chart, and a doc wants to give verbal orders, I hand them the chart.

I've always gotten along well with the docs I work with, but I consider them my co-workers, not my superiors.

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We have a doctors room just off the nurses station. It's not a big deal to us. They have computers, to look up labs and a lot of Xrays are now online as well. There are several phones because they use it to dictate. They deserve a quite area away from the noise to dictate and write orders.

The doctors area isn't any nicer or bigger than the nurses station. And it's not necessarily off limits to nurses. What is nice is a doctor wants to use and area outside their area we can say "no, you need to go to the doctors dictation area and sit". :)

Tweety, that is so different than what we have and it is nice that the nurses station is just as good. It is a good point that the doctors do need a quite area, however, I feel that we need a quiet area, too. Frequently, while we are charting, and even preparing our medications, we are interupted endlessly.

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Specializes in Med Surg, ICU, Infection, Home Health, and LTC.
tweety, that is so different than what we have and it is nice that the nurses station is just as good. it is a good point that the doctors do need a quite area, however, i feel that we need a quiet area, too. frequently, while we are charting, and even preparing our medications, we are interupted endlessly.

you may not believe this one but the nurses at my facility have to stand and chart in the hallway. we use the emar system, computerized everything.

so we are not allowed to even be in the nurses station except to check for new orders or pick up new meds delivered. all charting must be done either in the patients room, an impossibility, or in the hall like a stray puppy and e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e comes up and talks to you there.

can you say confidentiality issues as they read over your shoulder? oh no, you are to stop charting and hit the magic key and not chart until the person walks off. :crash_com

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
Tweety, that is so different than what we have and it is nice that the nurses station is just as good. It is a good point that the doctors do need a quite area, however, I feel that we need a quiet area, too. Frequently, while we are charting, and even preparing our medications, we are interupted endlessly.

Oh I understand that. It's not right for those places that don't have a separate nurses report area that the docs get a private area that's nice.

Yes, it's nursing's burden to be constantly interrupted. But how many times is a doc looking at a chart, or dictating that someone doesn't walk up to them and interrupt them, often multiple people and multiple disciplines, because it's our one chance to talk to them live. Often I'm in another room and then come out and see the doc and go to them and ask them for what I need.

The nurses have a private area behind the nurses station (which is often taken up with pt and ot) and we have a private breakroom which takes a code to unlock the door. But still we're interrupted.

The nurses station where I work is like grand central station.

If all the nurses have is a grand central station and the docs get a private room that's nicer, that is not right and I'd be angry too.

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