Once again, I am being faced with a crisis involving patient advocacy. I am employed as a RN BSN faculty member and one of my clinicals is on a Med-Surg floor. I have witnessed so many unsafe issues and have reported them to their Administration and Education Coordinators. I have also intervened to protect patient safety. There is a great deal of politics in hospitals and academia and that cannot be ignored. I have spoken to these low standards in conference and have informed the students that my conferences are confidential. Needless to say, there is a student who has been employed there for many years and she informed the nursing administration about the content discussed in those conferences. To think that asking me not to come back into their building with my clinical group is going to make my spirit disappear....they are dead wrong! I will continue to fight these issues outside of their walls...it won't be the first time either. I have dealt with politics many times in my career and I simply won't give into it. Being a patient advocate is not always popular as many of us have experienced.
I am wondering how those of you who have been involved in such a situation, coped with the dilemma of no one listening to you to affect change? This is not a post whereby I am asking for educator vs. staff nurse feedback...purely about patient safety. I have seen many shocking things in my career, but I have never seen this level of care in a JCAHO accredited hospital. To want to shove something under the rug rather than problem-solve is beyond me. I am accustomed to working in teaching hospitals and this one is rural...perhaps that is the difference? I have taught in another community hospital and did not witness this behavior or a nursing administration that was so blind to problems within their own walls.
