Passing things on

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I have a question for your all. How do you feel when a nurse from the previous shift passes something on to you? I work 3P-11P and there are times when something could not get done during the day shift....or maybe the nurse simply forgot to do it. I don't know if it is because I am a new nurse...but I am happy to do whatever it is that needs to be done. I find that the night nurses tend to get a little perturbed when something is passed to them. Is it because patients should be sleeping at night? It isn't like the nurse has to give meds every hour of the night and doesn't have time. I've reviewed the eMar for some of my patients and see that the nurse doesn't have to give meds until 0600 sometimes. I work at an LTAC and alot of our patients can't do for themselves and need incontinent care and turning...and all that jazz.

But, I thought that we are all part of the same team. Why the rolled eyes and attitudes when something gets passed on?

Specializes in Float Pool-Med-Surg, Telemetry, IMCU.

On my old unit we all worked well as a team and if something didn't get done on my shift, I knew the next nurse had my back and vice versa. I just transferred units and it's ridiculous the amount of attitude certain nurses give for utterly stupid things. I work days and I NEVER leave dressing changes or anything important to be done for next shift. However if my patient is psychotic and screaming and writhing in pain and I spend an hour getting her settled and obtaining new orders so she's calm when you come on shift don't be a jerk if I push the time for a flu shot forward because I couldn't do it when she was freaking out. It's not like I'm asking you to insert my foley, hang my blood, and place my NG tube. Cripes. :madface:

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This is a gray area for me right now. I'm a new nurse on nights and just yesterday I had one of the busiest shifts because of stuff done/not done by day shift. One or two things here and there are okay, but I'm still a noob so I can only handle so much! I admit that my skills are still growing and this was a factor in making my night busy, but a new nurse receiving an assignment (from another new nurse) that needs much more than everyday catchup can be overwhelming. My patients were stable, but the remaining tasks from the previous night + my own got to be too much.

The one patient I got seemed to have been harmed more than helped. I walked into the room to see that I had maybe 20 minutes of levophed left with no backup in the med room (I always make sure there's a new or extra vaso gtt bag for the next nurse, this is just common courtesy) so that's a trip to pharmacy. She fell at the beginning of the day (while the day team was shorthanded) and had a couple of scrapes and bruises nothing serious, but quite noticeable and definitely document-worthy. They were neither treated nor documented. This is a liver patient we're talking about here with a PTT in the 50s and an INR above 2.0 c'mon man! I had to take her down for the X-ray of her LS spine that was still pending to r/o injury (the fall was at ~0900 and I was taking her at 2100). There was a unit of blood pending to be transfused from 0838 for a Hb of 6.6 (pt. wasn't symptomatic, but I would still prioritize blood transfusions pretty highly). Her NGT was clotted and they didn't want to replace it 2/2 her coags being elevated, so I had to embark on the next to impossible task of "bribing" a very confused/picky patient to take her medication PO.

My current impression of nursing: it really is an unpredictable job. I feel like you'd be making a mistake to expect your day to go any certain way. Anything can change at any time and you really have to stay on your toes at all times.

I have to say... it looks to me like you got dumped on because you're a newbie. If I were you I would have (and you should have) written up the nurse on the shift before you. Not hanging blood from 0830? Write up. Not documenting injuries from a fall? Write up. Both of these things could have meant great harm to the patient. I'm sorry they did that to you!! What you're describing though is not a typical situation of passing things on... if that kind of thing is routine in your facility, you might want to think about getting out sooner than later.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

You'll always encounter eye-rollers who will take exception to anything that is left for them. There are a few in EVERY workplace. However, the general consensus is that if you've made an honest effort to get all your work done and have to pass something on, I'm happy to take care of it. If, however, the work didn't get done because you were playing on the internet or gossiping all night and/or just didn't feel like doing it, I'm not happy.

We rarely do enemas in my ICU, and when I came in on the night shift, the relatively new nurse who had the patient on days told me that he wasn't able to take care of the enema "because CS didn't send up the supplies." My charge nurse happened to hear this in passing, and moved off without saying a word. But when he was done giving me report, the new grad was confronted with an irritated charge nurse who said, "The order was written five hours ago, and all the supplies are in stock. Ruby and I will be happy to teach you how to do the enema right now, but you're not passing this on because you didn't know how to do it and didn't feel like learning." He learned two things right then -- how to give an enema and not to pull anything like that again. It's been about ten years now, and I've never seen him try anything like this again.

The experienced nurses on your unit figure out real quickly who is leaving things for the next shift for a legitimate reason and who is just shirking. You'll see eye rolls for the latter, but a friendly "Don't worry -- I'll have lots of time to take care of that" for the former.

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Specializes in Inpatient Oncology/Public Health.

I'm night shift and this is definitely not exclusive to our shift. Day shift is actually the worst at my place for eye rolling. If I get a laundry list of things not done(labs, TPN not hung, dressing not done and on and on), yeah I'm gonna roll my eyes a little(inside, not literally.) We all have flat out shifts where we can't complete every thing. But if it's a constant thing, it might be a time management/organization issue. Some people are a nightmare to follow with lots of mistakes and undone things in their wake and that makes for a very unpleasant shift for the one following.

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You'll always encounter eye-rollers who will take exception to anything that is left for them. There are a few in EVERY workplace. However, the general consensus is that if you've made an honest effort to get all your work done and have to pass something on, I'm happy to take care of it. If, however, the work didn't get done because you were playing on the internet or gossiping all night and/or just didn't feel like doing it, I'm not happy.

We rarely do enemas in my ICU, and when I came in on the night shift, the relatively new nurse who had the patient on days told me that he wasn't able to take care of the enema "because CS didn't send up the supplies." My charge nurse happened to hear this in passing, and moved off without saying a word. But when he was done giving me report, the new grad was confronted with an irritated charge nurse who said, "The order was written five hours ago, and all the supplies are in stock. Ruby and I will be happy to teach you how to do the enema right now, but you're not passing this on because you didn't know how to do it and didn't feel like learning." He learned two things right then -- how to give an enema and not to pull anything like that again. It's been about ten years now, and I've never seen him try anything like this again.

The experienced nurses on your unit figure out real quickly who is leaving things for the next shift for a legitimate reason and who is just shirking. You'll see eye rolls for the latter, but a friendly "Don't worry -- I'll have lots of time to take care of that" for the former.

I don't get people who try to pass the ball like that. Yeah you don't know how to do it, so learn!! I'm a relatively new nurse and if I come across something I've never done I grab another nurse and ask for their advice. And then you learn something new!

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Specializes in ICU.
This is a gray area for me right now. I'm a new nurse on nights and just yesterday I had one of the busiest shifts because of stuff done/not done by day shift. One or two things here and there are okay, but I'm still a noob so I can only handle so much! I admit that my skills are still growing and this was a factor in making my night busy, but a new nurse receiving an assignment (from another new nurse) that needs much more than everyday catchup can be overwhelming. My patients were stable, but the remaining tasks from the previous night + my own got to be too much.

The one patient I got seemed to have been harmed more than helped. I walked into the room to see that I had maybe 20 minutes of levophed left with no backup in the med room (I always make sure there's a new or extra vaso gtt bag for the next nurse, this is just common courtesy) so that's a trip to pharmacy. She fell at the beginning of the day (while the day team was shorthanded) and had a couple of scrapes and bruises nothing serious, but quite noticeable and definitely document-worthy. They were neither treated nor documented. This is a liver patient we're talking about here with a PTT in the 50s and an INR above 2.0 c'mon man! I had to take her down for the X-ray of her LS spine that was still pending to r/o injury (the fall was at ~0900 and I was taking her at 2100). There was a unit of blood pending to be transfused from 0838 for a Hb of 6.6 (pt. wasn't symptomatic, but I would still prioritize blood transfusions pretty highly). Her NGT was clotted and they didn't want to replace it 2/2 her coags being elevated, so I had to embark on the next to impossible task of "bribing" a very confused/picky patient to take her medication PO.

My current impression of nursing: it really is an unpredictable job. I feel like you'd be making a mistake to expect your day to go any certain way. Anything can change at any time and you really have to stay on your toes at all times.

Someone else posted the same, and I agree, this isn't stuff that someone didn't have a chance to do on their shift, these are clinical incidents that should have been dealt with as a matter of priority. Totally different to what we are talking about here. All this being left for you is totally unfair, and if it had been me I would have made a complaint.

My number one pet peeve is people not having a new bag of inotropes ready either for themselves or the next shift. It's just dangerous. This nurse needs a swift kick up the behind!

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Specializes in Anesthesia, ICU, PCU.

RNikkiF - it isn't a regular occurrence which is relieving to me. The nurse I got the patient from was a fill-in because somebody called out, so they actually arrived 3 hours into the morning. He is also a new nurse. Gotta say though, the patient who I was assigned to is a pretty difficult patient as far has her behavior goes and I have noticed that she's been getting assigned to the new RNs pretty exclusively. Whatever though, I provided great care and caught her all back up for the next day shift and reflected all of my care in my narrative note and charting.

ausrnurse - I'm worried about complaining because I don't want to appear to my managers and coworkers as disgruntled or that I can't handle my full assignment off orientation. However if somebody says something about why my 2300 meds were late I'm not holding back!!

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We have a few nurses that get huffy on both shifts if something isn't done, even with a legitimate reason. I don't mind passing something on with good reason and I don't mind getting something passed to me as long as the nurse says "hey it was really crazy and we just didn't get to this." If it was passing on reporting to the dr, I refuse to,accept that responsibility since it is a new patient. In fact I stayed late this morning to call 2 doctors with findings on my shift. I think either way, show professional courtesy and it will go a long way!

So you are a night nurse and think you should notify doctors of whatever they need to be notified about if it's something that began on your shift. I assume, first, that your boss doesn't mind paying you for staying late. I've had bosses who won't pay OT for the night nurse to stay late to call the doctor but, at the same time, didn't think it was right for the day RN to have to call when the problem started before Day shift.

What do you make of that?

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We have to sign a paper staing why we stayed late and staying past is frowned upon but it's frowned more upon not completing your work. ) it rarely happens to me(once a mth or 2) but sometimes it's inavoidable. This particular instance, 8 nurses clocked out late! It was a crazy, chaotic night for everyone :)

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Specializes in Float Pool-Med-Surg, Telemetry, IMCU.

I've finally just cracked and will now clock out and continue to work like everyone else on my unit does. I know it's wrong but I prefer that to having management on my back.

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Specializes in ICU.
I've finally just cracked and will now clock out and continue to work like everyone else on my unit does. I know it's wrong but I prefer that to having management on my back.

I will never understand this...not only is it illegal but you set yourself up for a lot of liability; you are not covered by the facility if something happens while you are off the clock. I get that you're all under a lot of pressure from all sides, but something else has to be worked out to make this stop happening.

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Specializes in ICU.

You should be able to call a doctor on your shift - that's why they're paid to be on call. If it's non-urgent (I don't know, rewrite chart if you are using paper charts or something) there's no reason the new shift can't deal with that.

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