This is a bit of a vent, but a timely one. I love working with a very diverse team on a busy med/surg floor. As we are now in Spring, we have many new orientees and again I have been asked to bring a few of them along as a preceptor. Every year it just strikes me how more and more irritated I get with some basic professional behaviors that normally don't tick me off this bad, but really get my hackles up when I find myself saying to a new nurse "well, the professional way to handle this is..." Sheesh! I shouldn't have to even have that conversation with a new grad when observing behaviors and interactions with our existing staff! Here are my top two for Spring 2015:
1. Our shifts are 0645 - 1915. I have worked nights and days and still CAN'T STAND IT when it comes to being on time for either shift. If you are coming off shift, I get that sometimes patient care delays being ready for report, BUT when you are the oncoming nurse, there is no excuse. "On TIME" means ready to take report right at 0645 or at 1845.. It does not mean, "I clocked in at 0645, but let me set my bag down in our locker room and get my stuff and fill my water bottle/coffee cup/etc."
2. It is isn't appropriate to have your smart phone out on the floor. I don't care if you were using the calculator function, or the drug look up. Those tools are available on our mobile carts and are provided by our employers (which BTW, you SHOULD be using resources provided and approved by your employer per most P&P!) But let's be honest, there is a different "tap" to being on FB, twitter, or texting than there is to using a tool. As a school teacher friend of mine once said to me, "I tell my students that I always know when they are texting on a phone. It just seems unnatural that you have been looking at your own crotch for that long while smiling, smirking, and laughing."
Disrespect for patients, which can take the form of anything from loudly talking at the nurses' station about how pathetic or what a PITA your patients are, to making fun of a sedated or unresponsive patient while in the room. Never assume they can't hear you.
Two biggest irritations are "It's not my patient" and stink.
If you are having down time and a call light goes off...and the nurse is in with another patient, go see what you can do to help! It doesn't matter who's patient it is...why not help out? You will be grateful when that nurse helps you out that way!!
Strong perfume that smells like you bathed in it is vile, some people have bad reactions and some just hate it. It is not professional. It is also not professional to pull out a tuna salad (especially with onions) at the nursing station to eat while you chart. Very simple--just don't stink!
I think the point was that there are obvious emotional aspects involved that can affect our perceptions when loved ones are involved. I won't defend playing phone-games while on duty, but the situation may have been much more innocent than how you perceived it. Maybe this nurse was on his break and he genuinely thought that the irrigation solution had more time, an honest mistake.
When I worked in acute care NOC shift I often took my "breaks" (if you could call them that) in the form of finding a dark corner and reading my kindle for a few minutes in those rare moments when all seemed quiet. I didn't take my breaks in the "official" break rom too often because I wanted to be somewhat available if a patient needed me. To a family member or visitor who happened to see me at one of those moments, sitting near the nurses desk with my kindle out, I'm sure it could very well appear that I was engrossed in my mobile device and neglecting my patients, though that would've been far from the truth.
Not saying your assessment of the situation was necessarily wrong, just saying appearances aren't always what they seem.
Did you even read my post? He was not "near" the nurses' station, nor was he in the "official" break room. He was across the entire PACU floor, in an empty nursing station, where he clearly couldn't hear the call system. It wasn't "quiet". A call bell was alarming at the nursing station, and he wasn't hearing it because he was yards away from said nursing station. And, he was playing a game, because I have same phone, same game. I know what it looks like.
I am in no way saying breaks don't need to be taken when and where they can on a stressful unit; and I've no problem with someone using their smart devices on a break. Not at all.
I am simply advocating that a PACU might not be the best place to bring a smartphone if you cannot refrain from using it when you're needed.
Seeing nurses throw each other under the bus for anything while NEVER seeing docs do the same to their peers even when I have seen some boneheaded decisions or under-thought orders.
People in general seem rather quick to turn others in for petty nonsense. It's ridiculous. As if nursing isn't stressful enough as it is-- then to have to worry about being stabbed in the back by coworkers to make it even worse.
And the rumormills-- co workers complaining about others, but not confronting each other with problems they might have. It's the petty, vindictive, and childish behaviors that annoy me the most.
Only 2 pet peeves, you must be an angel. Funny those are my top two also. I am chronically early so I can get all that "dicking around" done prior to clocking in. I clock in the 7 minutes early we are allowed and try to get right to report.
And on the phone thing, it just ticks me off to see staff constantly on the phone - we have one who will plug in the earphones and watch "orange is the new black" during work time. I actually had one co-worker who was on the phone so much that she actually yelled at me for sitting there charting and not getting her lights when she was on a personal call after her lunch break. I hadn't even had one break that day. It was surreal.
One of my good friends works with someone that does this too! Gross!
This must be a common thing because I've seen it too, in more than one place.....why out at the nurses station? There was a bathroom right next to the lockers in both places!
Late makes me crazy. Late and wanting a detailed analysis of the chart makes me bananas! Also, the nurse that complains about other nurses always showing up 5-10 minutes late but when it comes to getting their own but into work "will be about 30 minutes late".
Texting while working is unprofessional. Put the phones away till break time please.
One of my favorite from the past. Management wanted to cut back on overtime due to report running over. Solution? Written report. This did not last long. The previous shift would scatter downstairs to the smoke area as soon as they saw the oncoming shift get off the elevator. I go to read the written report, a lot of times it was written at 7:30am, right after the physical assessment, not cool. Changes not listed. But my favorite ones were a completely blank form except for "IV reseal"...really, nice, at least I have something to work with...well, not really, it's infiltrated big time...urrrr.....now I see why so many facilities have moved onto bedside reporting.
The hospital I used to work at posted a video on FB with the headline "Our nurses sing to patients!" showing two nurses with guitars singing for an elderly patient and his wife in his room.
Now, I know it's a nice thing to do. I take care of elderly patients and sing to and with them informally while performing ADLs, but my first reaction was that it made it seem like nurses performing and entertain was part of their job. The way it was presented--it just rubbed me the wrong way--like they were saying choose our hospital and be serenaded.
Well, it's worked in restaurants. The hospitals should stick to Mariachi-proficient nurses, though. Classical musicians like myself might raise the BP of some pts. They'd have to relegate me to the ones in shock and take me away from my TBIs... And then there are those who sing as well as I do sports......
Seriously though, that is an odd thing to advertise. And don't they set up enough non-nursing expectations of the nursing staff anyway??
There isn't a scrub top that doesn't cling to my breasts. I'm an HH cup. I would have to wear some sort of sack for a shirt. I don't wear low cut, skin tight scrubs though, if that's what you mean.
I apologize...that really wasn't what I meant. I had one in mind who I really did like as a person and was a good nurse; she was in her early-to-mid 20s, had a very athletic figure, and I'd guess was a B cup. She'd sometimes wear a scrub top that was fitted through the waist (think the tie-back ones, but without the tie. Tighter around the narrow part of the waist and flared out above the hips) and clung to her breasts.
I was not at all referring to those who can't help it, nor did I mean that those who can't help it are unprofessional.
I had one in mind who I really did like as a person and was a good nurse; she was in her early-to-mid 20s, had a very athletic figure, and I'd guess was a B cup. She'd sometimes wear a scrub top that was fitted through the waist (think the tie-back ones, but without the tie. Tighter around the narrow part of the waist and flared out above the hips) and clung to her breasts.
nicola64
3 Posts
Agree for the most part...I will make an exception for Girl Scout cookies though.