Nursing Evaluation and Job Performance Evaluation

[OldRNs]

25 years of nursing and all i wanted to do was step down from my high impact job and return to my local community hospital near my home to work until i retire. upon returning, this corporation took over the hospital turning it in a for profit hospital, okay?

here was my 90 day evaluation:

1. "you say you have 25 years of nursing experience, however, new graduation are catching on to the way we do thing here better than you do!"

2. "look, if you do not start coming to the unit meetings (huddles) at the beginning and end of your shift, it could cost you your job."

3. "you have not been doing what you are suppose to do and i had planned on terminating you today, however, your patients speak very highly of you and that is the only reason i am giving you another chance."

now really! i was never given a copy of my work performance with the reflections of what i was not performing according to the hospital's policy and procedure for rn job descriptions. i was never provided a corrective action form or a follow up date to see how i was doing. i know nursing has changed a lot but please help me to understand, how much has it really changed? still this day, i do not know what it is i did not do that was unsafe.

i was called into the human resource office and the director showed me a performance evaluation i had signed and evaluations that i had never seen in my life. the ones i signed, i was never told that these were reprimands for my performance on the unit and i was not given a copy or a corrective action. how do you respond to a nurse manager who when you question these action you know to be incorrect and illegal and they quote a policy you cannot even find? i even went to her to ask her where to find this policy and the response was, "just do your job and you will be okay!" so, this concerned nurse goes to the nursing recruiter for clarification and this nurse is referred back to her nurse manager and encouraged to utilize their open door policy that i did find in the hospitals policy and procedures. there is an investigation going on in many hospitals for practices such as this and this is just to name a few.

i guess if they looked in my folder, what would they find? unprofessional conduct written on a piece of copy paper and my hand written reply excluded and replaced with a typed reply by what my manager thinks i was trying to say, hhhhuuuuuhhhhhh? corrective action forms with no verbal warnings, no corrective actions, no written warning, and no follow ups or feedback.

i am not trying to re-write how we do thing as nurses in any given setting. i just want to complete my msn in nursing education so that when my body says to me "that is enough," i can just sat myself right on down and enjoy my retirement. where i come from, nurses are known to die instead of retire.