Preceding Nurse Never Completes her work

[bsnanat2]

I would like to get views from the ether on this:

There is a nurse who NEVER completes her work on time. She ROUTINELY doesn't chart meds given or doesn't give them at all, ordered blood is NEVER started on her shift no matter when the order was written nor does she ever get any labs done. She regularly stays 1-2 hours after her shift to do charting and will spend 15 minutes searching for a CNA to do something when she is simply sitting there. I wish hyperbole was involved but it isn't. There have been times I've checked the MAR to pull pain meds and it looks OK only to pull them and see that in the mean time she's charted an additional dose that wasn't there previously or the PIXUS will show a dose pulled that's not charted. Management has made it clear that they intend to do nothing about this. My question is, Would you accept report from a nurse when you know her charting and meds are not finished, or would you insist that she complete these before accepting report?

[ckh23, BSN, RN]

I would be going over every little detail in report with her making sure to know what has and has not been done. Also incident reports for the meds.

[zorabanks]

Patient's lives are in danger with a nurse like that on duty!!!! Look I've been a pt before on ICU...worried about things like this while there. You really need to report her until something is done. Report her to nursing board & the facility since management knows, but not doing anything. How can you be seen putting med in your pocket and nothing be done???? Really!!!! Come on people!

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

I had a similar situation at a prior employer -- nurse was the boss's BFF (and snitch) and so nothing happened until she managed to kill someone on a heparin drip after I was long gone. We all knew what was going to happen, did incident reports by the gallon, and all that happened was...nothing. They fired her after the heparin incident, but as far as I know, she's still practicing (the hospital wouldn't want the BON anywhere NEAR their incident reports on her, because some NM would have been right there with her in front of the BON).

Cover your backside. Make her sign off her MAR, because I promise you, when she manages to kill someone, they will try to blame it on one of you newbies to save the boss's BFF. Document your head off.

[ECUNurse2009]

WOW. This is scary! I would refuse to take report from her and call the supervisor/manager. Pt's lives are at risk!

[netglow, ASN, RN]

Someone I know had this exact same situation. She never found out what the reason was as far as why this person wasn't booted. But, to actually be needing to assess and start the next med pass and not know what the heck is going on is way too dangerous. I bet nerd is right on the money -- this nurse is somebody's BFF, but probably a relative of someone in admin.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

We had a nurse doing that with pain meds. Turns out she was stealing a ton of the narcs she was supposed to be giving. Huge red flag there.

[LynnLRN]

Wow, I'd go above your manager to her director if she truly doesn't care about these mistakes. I also would start doing incident reports on all meds that were not given or given a few hours late. She is setting you up to make a mistake by not charting until after you assume care.

[SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS]

We had a nurse doing that with pain meds. Turns out she was stealing a ton of the narcs she was supposed to be giving. Huge red flag there.

You know that is interesting. I worked at a place where the nurse manager had a tightlittlegroupoffriends, including the ANM. One of these dear friends was stealing controlled substances right from under everybody's nose (in the days before PYXIS and all that). It was just so hard for the NM to fire "one of our own."

A good manager would simply not be friends with any staff that report to her. Period, end of story.

[loumomoftwo]

Just reading all this great info. But how can you go through the MAR of all the patients.. time consuming eh? Can you come in early for your shift just to do a quick walk through and see what is not up to par?

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Just reading all this great info. But how can you go through the MAR of all the patients.. time consuming eh? Can you come in early for your shift just to do a quick walk through and see what is not up to par?

Well, I look up all my meds before my shift anyways. Then when it comes time to give pain meds, I always looked through to see the trends on how the pt was doing. Are they asking for their meds at the prescribed rate or can they go longer without. It became an issue when my pt was getting her Q2H dilaudid at EXACTLY Q2H the entire day, but they were all documented at the end of the day. Red Flag 1. Pt was bent over in pain begging for death. Red Flag 2 ( she wasnt a seeker) You could see the carpujets (SP?) in this nurses pocket like they were a bandolier of bullets. Red Flag 3. All this was enough for me to turn her in to my charge nurse and that got the ball rolling.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

It became an issue when my pt was getting her Q2H dilaudid at EXACTLY Q2H the entire day, but they were all documented at the end of the day. Red Flag 1. Pt was bent over in pain begging for death. Red Flag 2 ( she wasnt a seeker) You could see the carpujets (SP?) in this nurses pocket like they were a bandolier of bullets. Red Flag 3.

Did she get a Darwin Award along with the pink slip? Geez...

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Did she get a Darwin Award along with the pink slip? Geez...

Well here is the weird part.....She was never fired. She was asked to leave. From what we can tell she was never reported to the BON either as we could not find any info on her.