nickikh23

I'm hoping someone will be able to provide some insight as to how to handle this situation. My NM pulled me aside the other day to discuss an issue with a patient that I had been caring for this week. This particular patient is a confused patient who was vent-dependent for over two months and has just now progressed to trach collar around the clock. He was an open-heart patient gone bad. He has been on two point restraints from the beginning because he pulls at all his lines. He is a confused patient who does not believe he is in the hospital, does not believe he came in to have surgery, who tries to get out of bed to go to doctor appointments, etc. He has attempted to decanulate himself multiple times when we are turning him in the bed. The restraints had become a safety precaution for him. He had recently progressed to not needing any restraints at all. I had heard in passing that the wife is angry that we "tie the restraints too tight" and that he is "fully aware" of what is going on with him. The other night his wife claims that he mouthed to her that someone had hit him. The patient's wife stated that she then saw this same person that he pointed out enter another patient room, displaying a harsh tone and yelling at this other patient. She states that she came practically eye to eye with this person and now the patient's wife is demanding a name of this person to report them. My NM came to me because I am one of the people on the floor who was working that night who fit the description that the wife provided. I was caught so incredibly off guard and can't even believe that anyone would treat any of our patients in that way. I have never seen anyone visit this patient so I don't know how she came "eye to eye" with me. The clothing colors the wife described about this person do not fit the outfit I was wearing that night at all. I looked back on my schedule and am now noticing that I was not even working the night the wife claims that this happened. The night before that I had worked I was in and out of the patient room once to get vitals for the nurse. The other patient who was supposedly spoken to inside the room with a harsh tone was out of bed to chair in the hallway until nearly 10:30PM, two hours beyond visitng hours. My NM is as confident as I am about the care I provide to our patients. I respect and understand that she is only doing her job by asking, but I can't help but feel frustrated. She told me to consider the issue resolved and that she trusts me fully with the work I do on our unit. I am still so frustrated and am wondering if anyone's been in a situation similar to this.. how did you handle it? Should I email my NM the realizations I had about not even working that night and the other patient sitting out in a chair outside the room, or should I just let it go? I can just see my NM having myself and the patient's family stand face to face and the patient's wife saying, "yes, that's the one" despite my complete innocence. I am really bent out of shape because I know how hard I work and how much I care for our patients. I'm graduating from nursing school next year and am feeling so put down by the fact that this family insists that this has all happened. I know I shouldn't let it get to me because I know that I did not do any of what this family is claiming, but ahhh.. it is frustrating.

Daytonite – I appreciate your response, as I know you must feel passionately about it or you would not have taken the time to type it all out. I reread my post and understand where your concerns are coming from. I did not realize how negative my comments would come across until after rereading my post. I think a majority of what I had to say in my post was me being upset with my job and needing somewhere to vent about all of my frustrations, and only my frustrations. I can see why you would ask why I would even want to continue in Nursing school as I highlighted only the negatives of my job. I view my floor as a very challenging floor to work on. Nurses look at me like I’m crazy when I say I still want to be a nurse. I know that I’m young and that I haven’t seen anything in comparison to the experiences you’ve had, but I do know the importance of putting my patients first and caring for them as I would my own family member. As I said at the beginning of my original post, even at my most frustrating moments, my job has confirmed my desire to become a nurse. I hate some of what we do. I hate what patients are put through. I can’t stand to see the pain on their faces, but I do my best to support them and to provide them with the absolute best care. The patients we care for are living some of the most miserable lives possible. Many will never wean off the vent, many are receiving dialysis every single day. A majority would probably rather not be living. You can see the sadness in their eyes. It’s a miserable life. I would never, ever want any of what I see on a daily basis to happen to my friends or family members. While I do hate a large amount of what our patients go through, there are so many things that I do love about our patients. Many remain on the floor for longer periods of time and it’s nice to get to know the person behind the illness. It’s nice to learn about them, about their families, about their hobbies and the things they like. Many patients have cried after I’ve bathed them because other people didn’t bother washing under their nails or washing their hair or putting lotion on their hands and feet. The smile on their faces when you get them sitting up in a chair is priceless. I am an extremely sympathetic person and am conscious of the way I make patients feel. I often find myself to be the one who calms other staff down after they become upset or angry with a patient. It upsets me when some of my coworkers shove patients across the bed, jamming their faces into the side rail. It upsets me when I see a patient grimacing in pain while we’re turning him and hearing the nurse say he doesn’t need pain medicine. I've asked these same coworkers to be more gentle when caring for patients, at the risk of them yelling back at me. I’ve seen nurses scream and yell at patients. I’ve seen nurses with horrendous attitudes. I’ve seen nurses yell across the unit that they refuse to care for patient XX after this day. These are not the coworkers I admire. These are the coworkers I will strive to never be. I can see how easy it is to become that way, and for some it takes a lot of strength to look past it all. I don’t think NICU will be any easier or any less challenging. In fact, I would expect for the job to more than likely be far more emotionally and intellectually demanding. I want to try everything in Nursing. Nursing is a passion and it requires a large amount of dedication. I hope to one day have the experience you have and to become more solidified in my nursing role. I have a lot to learn and a lot to see and I’m excited for it. Family members and patients have both expressed their satisfaction with my patient care. I am confident that I make patients feel good, and I am also confident that they know they will always have someone cheering for them. So, thank you for the kick in the butt. Please don't feel the need to response to this. I responded to your post to help myself sort out how I feel. I knew I would find some good advice here, and you've offered plenty. Nursing can be tough and the advice and support from fellow nurses is important. I hope this second post offers some further insight.

This has been some really great advice so far, all of which I will keep in my mind over the year to come. I feel much more validated for feeling the way I do, and for wanting to gain new and different experiences in Nursing. I think sometimes we need the extra support and guidance, and I knew this would be just the place to find it. Thank you again to those who responded.

This website is so great and helpful. This is my first post so please bear with me. I'd greatly appreciate any input! This Fall I'm going into my senior year of Nursing school, which is all clinical-based. I've been working as a Nurse Extern (which, to the hospital, is basically a glorified tech who will be graduating from a Nursing school soon) on a Medical ICU Stepdown floor for a year. I feel like I've seen and experienced a lot and I already feel well ahead of my peers at school. The greatest part of the job, though, is that it's confirmed my desire to become a nurse! So what's the problem? Our Nurse Manager does a horrific job of "managing" the floor in nearly every way possible. She plays favorites, tries to be everyone's friend, she takes patient's family's sides and finds fault in the care that our nurses are providing, etc. She treats techs poorly and pretty much makes them feel unvalued. She'll pay a nurse $350 to work four hours and will offer a tech $25 to work eight hours. I absolutely understand the value of education and experience, but these actions also deliver the message that techs are unnecessary on the floor. A dangerous division between nurses and techs has developed on the floor over the past few months over this issue and she states she just cannot afford to pay to staff techs on our unit. I stay late all the time, sometimes until 1:30AM to help midnight shift with first rounds just because they are never staffed with techs on nights anymore. The only reason I've made so many sacrifices for the floor is because I love the people I work with on night shift and I think it's ridiculous how little management cares about staffing the off shifts. I was ignorant to a lot of this for quite a while and was working tons and tons of overtime until I recently decided that I was making far too many sacrifices in my personal life. I know that my NM values my presence on the floor as she has been having me precept several new hires. She is well aware that I will be graduating next May and always checks in with me to remind me that she's "already reserved a spot" for me on the Nursing staff. She even makes comments like this when there are several people around. She has the expectation that the Externs she has will all come back onboard as RNs. A large majority of them do, and when I've asked some of them why, they've mentioned that our NM bumped up the starting salary a bit and they were comfortable with the floor and the patient care. It makes me extremely uncomfortable when my NM makes these comments because I'm fairly confident that this is NOT the kind of Nursing I want to do. The patients we care for are mostly vent-dependent patients who require complete care. Most are well over 300 pounds, don't help with turns, push back when you try to turn them, are incontinent around the clock, and are just plain needy and demanding. I've been kicked, punched, spat at, sworn at, and the list continues, more times that I've ever cared to be throughout my entire Nursing career. Everyone ends their shift with sore backs, and while the ceiling-lift slings are great, they are not the magic answer that the hospital was hoping for! Nurses leave all the time because of the large toll it takes on the body. I know someone needs to care for these patients, but I can easily see myself becoming worn out after only a short amount of time on this floor. This doesn't even include my lack of desire to work for a NM who acts the way she does and who treats her staff as inappropriately as my NM does. I've learned a lot and I love the staff on the floor, but the patient care does not appeal to me. I know that Nursing opens up an entire world of opportunities for me, and I feel like I want to try everything! I've had my eye on the NICU for as long as I can remember, and that is what I truly, truly want right now. I realize that there will be management issues no matter where I go in the hospital. I suppose I'm just needing to vent somewhere about how I feel. I'm also just looking for any suggestions on how to handle the uncomfortableness when these situations arise. I know this was long, but I feel better now that I've been able to sort out of my feelings. Any thoughts out there on how to best handle future situations like this?