Nursing as maid of all trades

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I am so often (almost continually) frustrated at work by all the people that feel they can delegate to nursing or dictate how we do our thing. One of our docs treats us as "her" nurses, and refers to us as such to patients. If equipment is in the room she will write an order for us to pull it from the drawers, and leave rather than get it out herself. She is BUSY you know!

RT dept, maintenance dept and materials dictate what we keep in our crash cart and where we put everything. Doesn't matter that the nurses who work in the dept all agree that items we use most often should be easier to access. Their order sheet is listed like so, and thats how they want the supplies stored. And why should they go to the trouble of changing their sheet because the nurses want to change something?

Our thermometers are routinely 2-3 degrees off, we have only one that is accurate. We steal BP cuffs from another unit, and pharmacy crabs that our narcotic count is sometimes not in temporal order, but the Pyxis has been sitting unprogrammed for months.

Yes, the NM is aware of all this, yes she promises to do something about it, but the lag time between promises and action means there is more building up (for me) than is getting solved. I'm trying to look at it as a challenge- how much can I get done safely without optimum equipment, but it is wearing on me.

I LOVE the people I work with, I'm not thinking of leaving, but does anyone have a different mind set to approach this from? Of course, a little co-venting is great to hear too!

Sounds like my workplace. Except that usually we can't get into the pyxis because our biometrics is off and the stupid thing won't read my fingerprint, or the patient med list hasn't been uploaded to the pyxis by pharmacy so you can't remove the med. :angryfire (our pyxis won't let you remove a med that hasn't been prescribed to that patient, there is an emergency override, but the emergency override will only let you remove the meds you would need in a code like situation. Works great for preventing med errors, but tell that to the patient who has to wait 2 hours to get the med because the pharmacy hasn't put the med in.)

It's horribly frustrating trying to provide care and a safe environment when you don't have the tools to do so.

Do you have the ability to "override" your pyxis? We do. havre you ever ctually checked to see if you can get out other things? We can get out anything (even narcs) as long as we override. Many a time pharmacy hasn't put meds in and so we just do that override.Once you remove something from Pyxis, it shows up on the person's med record (e-mar, I guess you call it) and then you chart from there.

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Do you have the ability to "override" your pyxis? We do. havre you ever ctually checked to see if you can get out other things? We can get out anything (even narcs) as long as we override. Many a time pharmacy hasn't put meds in and so we just do that override.Once you remove something from Pyxis, it shows up on the person's med record (e-mar, I guess you call it) and then you chart from there.

Only certain meds are available by override. such as 10 mg morphine syringes, but not 4 mg morphine syringes, yes you could do a waste, but the barcode on the 10 mg syringe won't scan into the patient's record, becuase we have barcode med administration so per hospital policy you have created a med error. Also, meds such as vicodin, lortab, soma aren't available on override.

I do know that ativan, 10 mg morphine syringe, epinephrine, dilaudid, and some other meds I can't think of off the top of my head are available. Basically the meds you would need in an emergent situation.

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Specializes in cardiac ICU.
Gosh... don't even get me started.

The things that are delegated to nurses anymore is truly absurd !

Instead of having someone resposnsible for inventory, and stocking.. WE have to meet the delivery truck (even if it's after we are done for the day, after a long, HARD day that began at 0400!) and once he "delivers" (meaning just unloading it in the basement).. WE have to count the inventory, then begin stacking, sorting, piling, and carrying all this HEAVY stuff around to it's proper place (much of which is upstairs). :stone

And I'm referring to 35# boxes of saline, heavy bags of dry bicarb mix,.. I could go on forever. A whole truckload of inventory, and WE get to put it all away ! Every other week. Not to mention pumping the acid from the barrels (55 gallon drums) outside into the holding tanks in the basement... even if it's zero degrees outside and a blizzard. :rolleyes:

Always more and more being thrown at the nursing staff in order to save the COMPANY $$ from having to hire a person more appropriate for the job.

VERY, VERY annoying, discouraging, and frustrating. As if we don't have ENOUGH to do already and no time to do it all ! :angryfire

That's the most ridiculous waste of a nurse's time I've EVER heard! What do they think you are, mules?

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Get this........now we're going live with ROOM SERVICE in two weeks. Now, on top of everything else we have to do, we're supposed to explain patients' diets to them and help them fill out their menu choices (try this with your average 80-something Med/Surg patient who's seriously ill and/or demented :madface: ), then we're also expected to SERVE the food as soon as the order comes up to the floor........even if it's at 9 at night or 2 in the morning, not just at regular meal times.

Personally, I hate the whole concept.........IMHO, being forced to waitress, on top of everything else, just demeans what we do and reinforces that servile role nurses have worked so hard to escape. I swear, I don't know WHAT our management was thinking when they came up with this one. :angryfire

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Get this........now we're going live with ROOM SERVICE in two weeks. Now, on top of everything else we have to do, we're supposed to explain patients' diets to them and help them fill out their menu choices (try this with your average 80-something Med/Surg patient who's seriously ill and/or demented :madface: ), then we're also expected to SERVE the food as soon as the order comes up to the floor........even if it's at 9 at night or 2 in the morning, not just at regular meal times.

Personally, I hate the whole concept.........IMHO, being forced to waitress, on top of everything else, just demeans what we do and reinforces that servile role nurses have worked so hard to escape. I swear, I don't know WHAT our management was thinking when they came up with this one. :angryfire

Make sure, then, that the dietary people deliver the trays. We do the order on your own thing and it is no extra work for us. Of course we have healthy young people as patients. They have a menu and they call and order their food. We nurses have little to nothing to do with any of it.

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That's the most ridiculous waste of a nurse's time I've EVER heard! What do they think you are, mules?

i agree.

i would absolutely refuse to unload deliveries. i would encourage all my peers to refuse.

what would they do? fire all of you?? how would they replace all those nurses at once??? won't happen.

they have you unloading deliveries bc of one reason only...

YOU DO IT.

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Get this........now we're going live with ROOM SERVICE in two weeks. Now, on top of everything else we have to do, we're supposed to explain patients' diets to them and help them fill out their menu choices (try this with your average 80-something Med/Surg patient who's seriously ill and/or demented :madface: ), then we're also expected to SERVE the food as soon as the order comes up to the floor........even if it's at 9 at night or 2 in the morning, not just at regular meal times.

Personally, I hate the whole concept.........IMHO, being forced to waitress, on top of everything else, just demeans what we do and reinforces that servile role nurses have worked so hard to escape. I swear, I don't know WHAT our management was thinking when they came up with this one. :angryfire

can you charge the 18% gratuity that is normally tagged on room service PLUS the $2 delivery charge?? ;)

you could make more money delivering trays :)

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Specializes in ER.

Yes...the last hospital I worked at was going to have the nurses serve those special dinners the OB patients get, lobster, steak, china, etc. I was totally against it. No one signs up as a nurse to become a waitress.

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can you charge the 18% gratuity that is normally tagged on room service PLUS the $2 delivery charge?? ;)

you could make more money delivering trays :)

LOL. Great idea!

Seriously, if they are offering room service, they should hire wait-staff. I cannot imagine adding this to the list of things that must be done...

SJ

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.
LOL. Great idea!

Seriously, if they are offering room service, they should hire wait-staff. I cannot imagine adding this to the list of things that must be done...

SJ

True :roll

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From a competitive standpoint, the hospital is doing a really smart thing and they are going to advertise the heck out of it. What they failed to do is reorg and increase staffing of their food services department to carry out this inititative. Thats what needs to happen. This is nuts: Licensed nurses doing this.

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

We have food service people who do this. The only glitch we're finding is accuchecks, but we're working on it.

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