Perks of the Job???

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What are some of the little side perks that individual families bestow upon you? Another thread started touching on good things when it was a thread for crazy stuff, so I thought I'd post a new topic.

I have a family that throws parties sometimes, real good ones, and I always get leftovers! On my overnight shift, I feel like Templeton at the fair!

"Monica" is really, really lucky that "Suzy" didn't want to risk punishment for her own part if this fraud or Monica wouldn't have to ever worry again about finding a nursing job. She'd be lucky if she could get a job at a fast food restaurant.

Suzy is really lucky that nothing ever happened to her kid while Monica was supposed to be there.

CYoung - that sounds like an AMAZING family and house.

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Specializes in Peds(PICU, NICU float), PDN, ICU.

I've seen the "suzy/Monica situation" more times than I could count. There needs to be a person who randomly stops at these homes to see if a nurse is there and to check notes to make sure they aren't falsified. I've watched nurses either walk in and write notes for the week so they can play the rest of the week. I've watched nurses not write anything until the end of the week or they take the paperwork home and do a weeks worth of notes. I was training a nurse and she walked right in and filled out the flow sheet for the entire 12 hour shift. She was only there for 6 hours. I stopped her and told her she couldn't do that. I'm sure she does it when she's not being watched. She told me she had phone calls to make so by doing that, it saved her time.

I had a parent tell me she would let me leave a few hours early and to stay another day several hours late so she could use the hours the way she wanted. But she wanted me to chart showing the hours like they normally are. I told her no and after that she let me go off the case. She had anger issues and it would have ended ugly any other way.

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Specializes in Peds(PICU, NICU float), PDN, ICU.

I'm getting a perk of the job right now. My pt is taking a nap. It gives me a chance to do what I need to do without chasing a 2 year old around. I can order supplies without background noise, I can clean before another mess is created, and can make sure my notes are completewithout a kid grabbing my paperwork or pen, and I can eat lunch and use my phone for a break (watching the monitor of course).

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I don't look good in prison orange so no cooking the books for me!

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I've seen the "suzy/Monica situation" more times than I could count. There needs to be a person who randomly stops at these homes to see if a nurse is there and to check notes to make sure they aren't falsified. I've watched nurses either walk in and write notes for the week so they can play the rest of the week. I've watched nurses not write anything until the end of the week or they take the paperwork home and do a weeks worth of notes. I was training a nurse and she walked right in and filled out the flow sheet for the entire 12 hour shift. She was only there for 6 hours. I stopped her and told her she couldn't do that. I'm sure she does it when she's not being watched. She told me she had phone calls to make so by doing that, it saved her time.

I had a parent tell me she would let me leave a few hours early and to stay another day several hours late so she could use the hours the way she wanted. But she wanted me to chart showing the hours like they normally are. I told her no and after that she let me go off the case. She had anger issues and it would have ended ugly any other way.

Why? Why would someone risk so many years of school, jail time, public embarassment, loss of licensure for a few hours?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

How can you possibly chart ahead of time? How do you know that at 11:09am, Little Johnny isn't going to desat to 62, need to be bagged and need an emergency trach change? If you document that everything was great and then the kid goes to the ER for respiratory distress, the documentation is wrong and the parent might not even know that it could be aspiration pneumonia.

Where are all these parents that they aren't reading nursing notes every day or every few days?

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Specializes in Peds(PICU, NICU float), PDN, ICU.

Why? Why would someone risk so many years of school, jail time, public embarassment, loss of licensure for a few hours?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

How can you possibly chart ahead of time? How do you know that at 11:09am, Little Johnny isn't going to desat to 62, need to be bagged and need an emergency trach change? If you document that everything was great and then the kid goes to the ER for respiratory distress, the documentation is wrong and the parent might not even know that it could be aspiration pneumonia.

Where are all these parents that they aren't reading nursing notes every day or every few days?

Its pretty scary! I think some parents don't read notes due to lack of education. I have a parent now that is illiterate and in her 20s. Some parents trust the notes we make. Some won't care about the notes until there is a problem....which the parent possibly brought on them by not keeping up with things in the first place.

I had a parent tell me that she had a nurse that lived in her neighborhood. She would let the nurse take the pt to the nurses home for the shift. The nurse decided to take another job and leave the pt with the nurses boyfriend/husband. The pts mom found out and let the nurse go. The nurses boyfriend/husband wasn't a nurse and had no medical background (not that having a medical background would make things ok). I worry just running to my car to grab tp out of my trunk!! The mom also told me a story about a nurse inviting a trucker into her home. The mom came home and the trucker the nurse met online was sitting there. The same mom (poor mom) had a nurse while I was there living out of a van. The nurse had an odd odor, but I thought maybe there was a reason behind it and tried to ignore it. The mom asked me about the nurse one day and said she saw the nurses van at the entrance of a local park. So the mom started driving by on the way to work to see what she could find out. Turns out the nurse really was living in her van. The moms other child came home early from school one day and caught the nurse taking a shower at the pts home. The mom let that nurse go. It amazes me how some people are willing to risk so much. These nurses go beyond what we see as a perk of the job and they take advantage of a good thing.

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The homeless nurse story is sad. I would have just let her come early and shower and wash her clothes. I'm totally understanding. I used to live in rural Appalachia for work and know a lot of families with no running water that had to use pay showers in town. I would have been ****** if she was showering on the clock because my child needed constant care.

I definitely would have flipped out if a nurse invited someone over or if she took my child to her house, not to mention just leaving him with someone else. That would have been more than "don't send her back." I would have gone for abandonment on that one.

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Specializes in Pediatric.
The homeless nurse story is sad. I would have just let her come early and shower and wash her clothes. I'm totally understanding. I used to live in rural Appalachia for work and know a lot of families with no running water that had to use pay showers in town. I would have been ****** if she was showering on the clock because my child needed constant care.

I definitely would have flipped out if a nurse invited someone over or if she took my child to her house, not to mention just leaving him with someone else. That would have been more than "don't send her back." I would have gone for abandonment on that one.

Whoa I'm shocked at those stories. Wow. I'm surprised when parents leave me or any nurse alone with their kid, especially at first. Not that they shouldn't trust us. It just surprises me, the number of moms who have left me alone with their kids the first day of meeting me.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

Whoa I'm shocked at those stories. Wow. I'm surprised when parents leave me or any nurse alone with their kid, especially at first. Not that they shouldn't trust us. It just surprises me, the number of moms who have left me alone with their kids the first day of meeting me.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

Yeah...the stories show that underneath "the invisible cap", humans are humans; it also gives a perspective of what parents go through and sometime WHY they behave the way they do.

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Specializes in Peds, developmental disability.

Once people loose their sensitivity to right and wrong, maybe they consider the cheating to be some kind of sport, or challenge to their ingenuity.

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"Monica" sounds like she had several issues. In addition to fraud, she was also pushing a boundaries violation.

I wonder how a nurse would explain a car accident and being in the ER when her time card says she is still caring for a patient? People tend to forget that out of the ordinary stuff can happen to both the nurse and the patient even a few minutes after the nurse leaves.

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.

Geez, one time the family let me go 10 minutes early and I had already filled out my time sheet, so they said not to worry about it, just enjoy getting home early for a change. I felt so dirty, and worried that something would go wrong in those 15 minutes, even though the ct was very stable. Now I'm hearing that people have done this for entire days and weeks at a time? How do they live with themselves? I'd have an ulcer by the end of the day if I ever tried that!

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