SallyRNCNOR

As a long time RN and a long time CNOR I will state with equivocation, that a one day orientation to the main OR is not sufficient and I believe that your manager is just doing what she is told, instead of what is right. This will be setting her staff up to fail and significantly jeopardize safe patient care. I believe that this is being done by administration, because the main OR is chronically short staffed. Many Administrators wrongly believe that a nurse is a nurse and can substitutue anywhere in the hospital. This is wrong. I strongly urge you and the rest of your RN co-workers to get together and en masse refuse to do this citing that this would jeopardize patient care and you don't feel safe to perform in this capacity. They cannot fire you for refusing an unsafe assignment. This has to be brought to the attention of the Hospital Administration. If your Manager won't stick up for you. Then your whole department inb masse should pay the Hospital administrator a visit and voice your concerns.

Dear Nurse Beth: I feel that you dropped the ball on this one. According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Any employer who has more than 50 employees must make every possible effort to accommodate that employees religious beliefs. The prospective employee who is an observant Jew could also make the accommodation to work every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so long as she gets her religiious holidays (Rosh Hashonnah & Yom Kippur) as well. It is up to the employer if they want to hire this prospective employee, but to refuse to hire her because of her religious restrictions, would be a violation of the law and also discriminatory in nature.

You did the right thing for the patient by calling his physician. If you had done nothing and the patient suffered from an untoward event, you would never forgive yourself. Administrators are often neither physicians, clinicians or nurses. Who are they to tell you how to do your job. They are only worried about getting paid, as frequent readmissions negatively impact their medicare scores and payment.

Nurse burnout is not caused only by the increased stress of having too many patients and not enough time to adequately do their jobs. There are other causes as well. Hostility from other staff members, verbal and physical aggression from Physicians whom the hospital management, never seems to do anything about, and having computerized charting systems that take too much time away from patient care, and finally having a hospital administration that cares more about profits than their employees and patients. This all leads to a feeling of powerlessness, frustration and burnout. There is so much stress on the job that nurses no longer feel that they have accomplished anything at the end of their shift, but they go home wondering what they might have forgotten. Unless nurses are allowed to do their jobs properly without managerial interference, have enough time, staff, and sufficient supplies, to do their jobs, burnout will continue to be a huge problem. Nurses at Magnet Hospitals who are truly empowered by having a say in how to do their jobs, suffer far less from burnout. It's time to put quality care back into nursing.

I most certainly would report the errors, also letting the supervisor know that the RN who made the error had falsified a document showing that you gave the medication, which you didn't. Obviously you are not yet using EHR's in your facility, because she would have been unable to cross out the time and amend it to show that the med had been given on your shift. Obviously this RN isn't too intelligent, because I would like to hear her explain how she gave the med on your shift as she had documented. I would also let the surpervisor know that you fear retaliation from this RN, which would create a hostile workplace for you. This is a serious offense and should not be taken lightly. Whatever you do make sure that you keep copies for yourself, minus the patient's name as that would be a HIPPA violation.

Obviously this Hospital Administrator is not working for a for profit hospital. In such a facility the staff is treated as a commodity, that can be easily replaced by lesser skilled personnel. The employees don't fee either engaged or valued. They are flogged to keep their departments under budget. Then the Managers and others in Administratiion get a financial bonus for which they did none of the work. What do the RN's get you may ask, they get an ice cream social or cookies and cake, of which more than half of them can't leave the unit, because they are short staffed. Can you think of any other profession in which peoples lives hang in the balance, where the staff is treated in such a denigrating and condescending manner. No wonder they don't feel eith engaged or valued, and they burn out. Wake up for profit hospitals.​YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THE NURSING SHORTAGE AND BURNOUT.

There is no magic age to hang it up, or stop working as long as you remain mentally and physically sharp. I was forced to retire on disability at age 63. I had been an RN since 1971, and an OR RN since 1980, as well as becoming certified CNOR. Unfortunately with all the call hours and the heavy lifting of both patient's and equipment, my body finally gave out on me. In the space of 4 years starting from 2012, I had my right knee replaced, my first lumbar laminectomy, followed several months later by a total right hip replacement, and then last December I've had an ALIF. Now as a result of that last surgery, I've developed a hernia, I do miss my nursing colleagues, and the job. I just don't miss the hospital politics, overwork and the demeaning surgeons.

Dear Decarla, My thoughts and prayers are with you. It sounds like they are giving you the runaround and are planning to let you go. This is not uncommon behavior for a for profit hospital that wants to save money on staffing by letting go of a long term employee. Is your hospital Unionized? If so even if you're not a member by law they have to represent you just as if you were a member. If your hospital is protected by a Union the employer has to show just cause in order to discipline you. I presume that you have an exemplary record, so they are looking for an excuse to terminate you. Do you live in a right to work state? If you do again this is standard behavior to get rid of a long term employee. The first attorney that you spoke to sound like a real tool. Find yourself another attorney, one who works on contingency, show up in HR with this attorney, and tell them that they are facing a very expensive wrongful termination lawsuit if they continue to proceed with this. Have your attorney ask for real evidence, and demand that you are returned to active duty immediately. Get as many character witnesses, and co-workers to testify or give affidavits in your behalf. Go to the press if you have to. Do not knuckle under to these bozos. This is not business as usual for you. You have a reputation to protect.

You can refuse to float to a floor if you don't have experience on that floor, by saying I don't feel safe in floating. If you say this to a Nursing Manager, make sure that you document somewhere or had a witness to that conversation. This puts the responsibility on the Nursing Manager, knowing that she forced you to work in an unsafe environment. If she/he insists then you can tell her/him that you would be willing to do vital signs, and perhaps pass meds, but don't want to take patients, as you feel unsafe and haven't been trained in that area.. Also get together with your Nurse manager and all the staff on your unit. keep a spreadsheet documenting how many times the staff has been floated. This is also a way to keep track of the staff that is floated so one particular nurse doesn't get floated out of turn. When you have enough data, you can present that to Administration to prove that there is short staffing and give a possible solution as to what can be done about it;e.g. limiting the amount of staff that could be given time off at one time. There seems to be a problem with the Nurse Manager giving all staff off when they ask for it without providing for staffing her unit without floats. They should keep a log book for requests for time off without having more than 2 people per shift off at the same time.

Violet, my thoughts and wishes for a complete recovery. I know you're pain. I was an RN for 26 years when I heard the dreaded words you have an abnormality in your mammograms bilaterally. I was an OR RN working on an Open Heart Team, and therefore took a lot of call. Like you I had no family history of breast cancer and I had breast fed all three of my children. I underwent stereotatactic biopsies and my left breast came back as DCIS, the right breast was uncertain. I found this out a week before my youngest son's Bar Mitzvah, and I certainly wasn't going to tell him and ruin it for him. I thank God that I had extremely supportive friends and co-workers as well as my then spouse, otherwise I wouldn't have made it through. I scheduled the Bilateral lumpectomies wit Localization, 4 days after my son's Bar Mitzvah. Not all of my family was as supportive. My sister's first response was "Oh no now I have a family history of breast cancer." I went through six weeks of radiation. At times I was so wiped out I could barely keep my eyes open, but I continued to work. Again my co-workers were extremely supportive. I developed an opportunistic infection as I was so exhausted and my immune system was compromised, and was treated for that. Then my PAP smear came back as positive. My OB-GYN did a punch biopsy and the it continued to bleed for 2 weeks. AT this point my Charge RN told me I'm sending you home, you can't continue to work like this, you have plenty of sick time accrued, and I don't want to see you back at work until you've been cleared by your doctor, and you've finished your radiation. I took the time time off and returned to work several weeks later. That was back in 1997, and knock on wood my mammograms have been negative since. I believe that this gut wrenching experience not only made me see the patient's side of this, but it definitely made me a better nurse.

Unfortunately, there isn't much that you can do at this time. However I urge you when charting, please document not only the patient's status, but also the facts that there were no chair alarms available, and who you notified. Being owned by a huge corporation is no excuse for not having adequate safety supplies for the patients in their care. In addition, make out an incident report every time you do not have adequate supplies, involved in safe care for patients. This will put the onus on the corporation for providing substandard care.

I totally agree with you. I have been an RN for many years and I detest the term client. A hooker calls her John a client. Well I'm certainly not a hooker. This term is debasing and denigrating for the nurse-patient relationship.

What you don't seem to realize is that unions are there to protect you. Yes seniority comes first when asking for vacations, but they are on a rotating basis. The person with the most seniority gets the pick of the vacation, but then drops to the bottom of the request list so that they won't always be first. Two week out is not far out in asking for vacation, so the manager is interpreting that part of the contract wrongly. It might be an honest mistake on the part of the management, or a deliberate attempt to create strife among the staff to create discontent with the union. Why don't you go to your union rep. They have to represent you whether or not you are a member of the union or not. She will go over the contract with you and can speak to the manager about her misrepresentation of the contract. Obviously your hospital unionized because the staff was sick and tired of poor working conditions, overworked staff and unsafe patient conditions. Instead of fighting about the union or complaining about it, why don't you find out more about it in order to make an informed decision. Unions are not there to protect lazy employees. If an employee gets written up multiple times for similar offenses with proof of no improvement, no union in the world will be able to protect that worker. The "Union" is not a mysterious organization, hell bent on taking over your organization, its the members of your union who make it stronger, and through that improve working conditions, have safe staffing levels so as to improve patient care, make sure all employees are treated fairly and yes improve their pay scale.

This seems to be a problem basically in right to work states and in facilities in which these abusive physicians bring in a lot of business. You have several options that you can follow. Make sure that this behavior is witnessed and all the staff is willing to make a complaint to the Hospital Administration with the firm understanding that there will be no retaliation for making the complaint. When filing a complaint make sure that an incident report is filled out detailing the misconduct and possible negative patient outcome. Give Administration a firm time line in which to keep you informed about what is being done about this situation. If administration doesn't follow the timeline, file a complaint against this Physician with the State Medical Board, and file a complaint with the local Police for Assault and Battery. Notify JCAHO of the Hospital's inability to discipline this Physician and the recurring episodes, as violence against employees (Physician to Nurse) can cause the Hospital to lose its accreditation. Lastly organize and join a Union.

There are many positions in a hospital that require staff to be on call for example OR, PACU, Cath Lab, ICU/CCU, GI Lab, PICU/NICU to name a few. I don't know where you practice nursing, but in many states nurses are paid overtime if they work past their shift, irregardless whether or not they were on call. Would you regularly like to be put in the position, where you are forced to work overtime on a regular basis. The nurse in the next room is receiving time and one half because she is on call, while you are just making your regular wages. Just think of it this way, the hospital is saving money big time on overtime pay, and differential that they would have had to pay for a nurse working the evening or night shift. If we work past our shift that is over time. I don't care if you work an 8 hour, 10 hour or 12 hour shift.