JJohnson

Thank you for asking! I packed my bags. I'm at USRC. In hind sight, I think my 'take away' on that experience is that there likely isn't a massive difference between the larger companies. The difference will most likely relate to management in or directly above your home unit. That was the case with me. The CM was poor. Her boss (I don't remember title) was poor. They wouldn't resolve problems that very obviously were effecting the unit.

I'm the "Home Therapies Liason" in our clinic. I encourage new patients to consider HHD and PD. I did all the LMS training on home therapies. I was trained on Nexstage. I like the pace of in-center, though. I don't think I could do home therapies. I'm friends with everyone in our HT dept. They've asked me many, many times to go work with them. I have far too much nervous energy to do their job. I like the diverse interaction out on the floor. I really enjoy dialysis. I'm good at it. I love the patients. I'm one of the expert cannulators, which is probably my single favorite part of my job... getting that hard stick that someone else can't get. But I've just about decided I'm going to have to leave. The unit I work in is larger: 30 chairs. I have an ED background. Again, I like the pace in the ED, too. I debating on a transition back to ED. Our entire unit is in the dumps. Morale is horrible. As far as nursing staff goes, we are all upset with the direction FMC has taken. It's a business. I get it. But I care about the patients. I've been pushed to a point where things are just being left un-done. Things are being missed. I know the acute units run on a productivity factor. I feel like that's where we are. It's all about man hours and watching the clock, rather than making sure work is getting done. All while standing under the banner that reads "setting the standard by which others in the medical field will be judged." (or something like that...) My last stand will happen this coming week. Our unit has requested a meeting with regional management. Not looking for a *** session. Just want sincere conversation about .... "stuff". I've been looking at other dialysis companies as I debate my next move. Something I never knew: if you look at job search websites, you find that Fresenius has a pretty bad rating for employee satisfaction. Most complaints sound similar to mine: More about the money than the patient. So, I'll go to this meeting and sincerely state my concerns and sincerely ask for resolutions. Because I see such widespread complaints on job search sites from FMC employees all across the country, I'm afraid the things that I don't like are systemic to the company. And that's fine. It's just not for me. That's all. The medical community is a business, after all. FMC is just going to spin the revolving door one more time!

I've only been in in-center dialysis for a couple years. In that time, unacceptable behavior has grown noticeably. Dietitian, Social work, CM, other nurses all agree. We talk about it fairly regularly now. I could quite easily leave if I had a better option.

I might bring this up just to discuss with other nurses and CM. While I'm grumbling.... I feel like the patients we have are the most entitled, and demeaning collection of people. This is a staff-wide complaint. Not me just being whiney. I worked in ED and ICU prior to dialysis. I've never had such a large percentage of patients be so frustrating. Do you guys see that, and does it appear to be increasing over time?

here’s how the work load is split in this facility: CIAs/Med reviews: each nurse has approximately 20 patients that they are responsible for doing annual CIA and monthly Med review Foot checks: we keep a list of diabetics at nurses station. If you are the charge nurse (what we call ‘team leader’), you do what foot checks you are able to do on any given day. Everyone just chips away at list over the month. Vaccinations (VAM?????) are given by the team leader on the day they are due. This may be a dumb question.... Do you think that each nurse being solely responsible for one job would be more efficient than the way I've described? I've never experienced it the way you describe, so I'm asking your opinion.

I've worked at FMC for several years. This is the only dialysis unit I've ever worked at, so I have nothing to compare my experiences with. This is a 30 chair unit, operating two shifts per day. I don't quite know how to word my frustrations, but I'll do my best.... I feel like they (the company, as opposed to the clinic manager) keep shoving more busy work at staff. Some of that does come from in-house. But the majority of my frustrations are from company. "Here's just 'one more' thing for you to do." Foot checks, CIA's, med reviews, admission paperwork, the mandatory education that comes around each year (that I'd have in any specialty....I understand), post-hospitalization forms..... I'm tired of it. I've been bottling it up. But it's just overflowed in the last few days.