nurse43cat

Ill start at the beginning so I wont confuse you all. I have been a psych nurse now for over 4 yrs now till March where I resigned my post effectively immediately....Ill give ya all the story and would like feedback on what to do with this all... I had gone to a follow up appointment with a cardiologist because I had landed in ICU 3 times in a matter of 6 months... everything is fine mind ya...typical wear/tear on a 44 year body ... anyways he put me out of work for 3 weeks... Prior to this I had to get FMLA to be able to go to my doctors appointments because they would not schedule me off....despite the fact they had a month notice mind ya so anyways So when this 3 week period was up I decided it was best to part my ways with this corporation here in Houston... Mind ya it bordered on unsafe management acts....... and I have already sat in front of the boards once and desired not to do it again .........I was going to be assertive with these individuals when it came to patient safety.. The day before the doctor put me out was the breaking point....we were understaffed...........TDH WAS here to interview me bout a situation that occurred...............believe me I COVERED ALL my bases and no one was hurt but a complaint was made against the management and thank god for my documentation.........it saved my backside as well as my actions saving patients from being harmed.....but anyways after 3 weeks went by I decided to quit... I submitted my resignation effective immediately. Since I resigned, I got a clean bill of health....no chest pain.......feel GREAT but now I want to get back to work couple days of work and most of the bites I am getting are from travel assignments and agency nursing firms... I signed up for the one I use to work at but nothing now mind ya this corporation is known nationwide for its behavioral health centers............ANY SUGGESTIONS...........ASK AWAY AND GIVE THEM FREELY PLEASE CATHY

well first of all welcome to adolescent psych nursing.. I worked the unit for over 3 years......it was tough let me tell ya......... didnt have an ounce of experience except thru raising my own children...setting limits , appropiate behavior, time outs, choices=consequences for behavior etc etc. But anyways to make the answer short... I never ever had the consistent staff necessary majority of time.... I was out there helping the one tech I had on a 16 bed unit to make sure the children and adolescents were safe...Because come right down to it if something happens to one of those children...it wont be management answering to TDH it will be you as a nurse unless you have adequate documentation that you consistently asked for assistance from them.....believe me it is your butt none the less..........do whatever your gut feel is right .....if you feel that you are not experienced enough to handle the milieu of adolescents/children......get out asap ....Get the basic knowledge from general psych because adolescent and children psychology is totally different than adult psych... so thats my input and experience... I eventually got out of it......I was realizing my license is too important to me to lose over management inability to recognize patient safety as an issue as well as them worrying bout the mighty buck... Best of luck from an old psych nurse Cathy

hmmm when I was working on adolescent unit, I had to go back several times to the term of sociopath and look in the manual for the cluster of sign and symptoms and apply them to these individuals and keep my guard up ALWAYS...