Our new hire, new grad charge nurse

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Let me ask you guys your opinion on this. They just hired a graduate nurse on our med surg floor and made her the charge nurse. She has zero experience. She is a BSN nurse, and the majority of us are LPNs that have been here a while. I don't have a problem with a grad nurse being a charge nurse, but with no experience at all? Has management in this hospital lost their minds? :confused:

Specializes in M/S, ICU, ICP.
let me ask you guys your opinion on this. they just hired a graduate nurse on our med surg floor and made her the charge nurse. she has zero experience. she is a bsn nurse, and the majority of us are lpns that have been here a while. i don't have a problem with a grad nurse being a charge nurse, but with no experience at all? has management in this hospital lost their minds? :confused:

just a thought but maybe no one else would step up to the plate. a great many nurses like to complain or talk about how they would do things but you try to get them into management and they back up so fast they could run you over. a lot of that at our place. they can point out the problem but refuse to be part of the solution. sometimes new eyes and a fresh innocence at least does not come with preconceived ideas. it may be agreat opportunity to grow.

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
I'm disappointed that this thread became an RN vs. LPN battle. No where in the OP is any resentment or jealousy implied towards the new RN from any LPN- the problem is that a BRAND NEW nurse is expect to operate as a charge nurse without any independent clinical experience on her own. I'd be very nervous to have my charge nurse be that new regardless of my title, LPN or RN. I'd be even more nervous as the new RN taking on that role! It has NOTHING to do with 'jealousy' of the RN and everything to do with the safety of a brand new NURSE being put in charge like that of an entire floor. :uhoh3:

Many seem to be letting their emotions lead them to erroneous conclusions based on every post they read in the thread. Instead of eagerly judging a post by what you think the poster really means try just reading the post. Don't "infer" You can't possibly know anyone's true intentis in a conversation on the internet-you don't have visual cues or vocal inflections to help you. Let go of your own prejudices and just read what is written and maybe the thread can get back on track. Or -maybe it won't. Its a common behavior on the net.Maybe some are just strirring the pot ....

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My friend was offered the position of a charge nurse at LTC as a new grad with no previous medical experience whatsoever. And he is still doesn't have his bachelors yet, just an Associates. I did not want him to get discouraged but I am petrified for him! I am afraid he's going to burnout in the first week and quit. That's his first full time job since high school. I just don't know anymore what these recruiters are thinking.

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Plus RN's have the benefit of having hours and hours of clinical experience in the hospital where we start IV's all the time.

I dont know any new grad RN who has never had a chance to start an IV. Unless of course their whole degree was online and they had no clinical experience which is not possible.

We didn't learn IV insertion in my program. I'm pretty sure student nurses are allowed to do this in my state at all, but at any rate it was very much against school policy and the policies of our clinical sites for us to insert IVs. We had as much clinical experience as the other programs in the area and graduates from my program have an excellent reputation.

I'm not picking up on any resentment from the OP LPN, but there's definitely a ton of defensiveness from some of the RNs posting. As a new grad BSN, I would be terrified to be in a supervisory position so early on and that's one of the reasons I wanted to avoid LTC for my first position. Sure, I had coursework on leadership and management BUT it was also drilled in to us that most of our nursing knowledge will come on the job.

I think it sounds like the facility might not be interested in paying for an experienced RN for the position.

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as a new grad I, too was put in charge of 10 bed ICU and 12 bed tele unit....I recognized I was not equipped to do this job and requested being a float on the med surg floors til I could get some experience under my belt. (I had gone thru a critical care class and felt ready to work the ICU environment but not be in charge) I did that for 6 mos, then moved out of state and took another job as charge nurse on night shift of a medical floor. there were 28 patients, and LPN an aide and me! That LPN had been in charge of the floor at one time. I learned so much from her! I went on to be in charge of a 38 bed med surg floor and after 3 years I went back to working ICU. After a year of staffing I became night charge of 4- 8 bed ICUs. I did that for 12 years and loved it! Since then I did other things such as travel critical care nursing, outpatient surgery and PACU, Today I am the manager of a 6 bed ICU and a 8 bed PCU. I still work at the bedside from time to time. If that LPN had not taken me under her wing, I wonder how that would have affected my career choices??

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Need to mind ur own bisquacks,this is y nrsg is so high stressed,people too jealous,envy of others, you should be worry only about urself and do the best job so maybe one day u will be in charge.

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"rn's dont hv to be iv certified. its inclusive in our education.lpn's are the only ones that need iv certification. plus rn's have the benefit of having hours and hours of clinical experience in the hospital where we start iv's all the time. please dont confuse the two, rns spend lots of hours in the hospital during school dealing with complex patients."

that may be true for your rn program but not all lvn/lpn programs are below par. my 18 month lvn program is run exacly the same as our school's rn program. not only did i have over 900 hours of clinical experience (and not at a skilled nursing facility/nursing home & is way more then my state requires) all at acute care hospitals. the local state university bsn graduates have less clinical hours then my lvn program. lvn's also spend lots of hours in the hospital during school dealing with complex patients. we take care of the same patients are counterpart rn students do. so don't confuse all lvn/lpn schools & training!

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Oh please don't start the LPN/RN war. Can we go back to the question new grad in charge???

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Specializes in Hemodialysis.

Oh my lord this is driving me crazy! The question that is screaming from my mind is how many RN's are actually working on this floor? She made no mention of how many RN's there are, just that there are "mostly" LPN's.

Where I come from every new grad RN I know that was hired as a charge nurse was in a LTC facility, which a lot of experienced nurses have no desire to do. I've heard some of them say that they had to go to the facility to do something in the middle of the night (on call) because there wasn't even an RN in the building.

It's all scary to have a new inexperienced nurse in charge, no matter where you are.

If there isn't a more qualified RN to do the job (or if there isn't another RN period), then she's stuck with it. She might not like it either, I would think she PROBABLY doesn't like it. She might only have taken that job because the market is so horrible for new grads that she couldn't find another job and couldn't feed herself or worse yet her family. Maybe she took that job only until she finds one more suited to her experience level.

An LPN can't be in charge here in this situation. Doesn't have anything to do with the experience level, or how much of a wealth of knowledge she may be, it's simply a matter of logistics. In theory and in practice, by law, an LPN works under the supervision of an RN. An LPN can not supervise an RN. Period.

To answer another previous poster would I feel differently if the majority of the nurses on the floor were RN's? Yeah, absolutely. Unless they were all new grads. There was never a mention of there being more qualified, experienced RN's eligible for this position. The way it comes across to me is that this RN was made the charge because she was THE RN.

How many RNs work this floor?

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wow i know how that new grad feels i myself am a new grad and have been placed in such a position, i only have my asn i am really having a hard time, i have no experience in a hospital setting at all. im nervous stressed and think its funny that i myself dont know as much as the lpns. nursing school you learn alot but you have no iidea how to be a nurse until your out on your own. anybody have advice for a new grad like me in this scary position with so much responsibility. i love my job though and hope to come out on top of this situation.:nurse:

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I've been reading through the responses and was just wondering, would so many people be as encouraging of a new grad RN, BSN in charge if this unit was primarily staffed with RN's?

In total honesty, if that were the case, staffed with RNs of more experience? No,we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But it's not, and so we are having this conversation:)

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
. . .An LPN can't be in charge here in this situation. Doesn't have anything to do with the experience level, or how much of a wealth of knowledge she may be, it's simply a matter of logistics. In theory and in practice, by law, an LPN works under the supervision of an RN. An LPN can not supervise an RN. Period.

The LTC my mother was in had an LVN as a charge nurse. She was fantastic. It is not against the law. I find that in my state "under the supervision of the RN" is very loosely defined. Being physically in the building was not a requirement. So many people come here and assert that "it's the law" this or that when it might be in their state, but every state has their own Boards of Nursing and scope of practice. I don't doubt that Puerto Rico and the Marshall Islands do as well.

It takes a certain type of individual to be a good manager. The new grad new hire RN shouldn't be completely written off, but in a field like nursing the manager needs to be a resource person. If she has potential to learn the ropes quickly it could work, but only if the experienced staff isn't trying to sabotage her. There are many stories here about nurses I know from their posts on this board are great,(regardless of whether LPN/RN/LVN) who accepted charge positions in LTC and were systematically worn down and eventually terminated from these jobs. I hate it because they usually doubt themselves before blaming the employees they supervise, or even the DON/administrator above them. Why some of these places would hire a person then set them up for failure I don't know. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

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