melissasrn

Weekend and holiday pay? Be glad you don't work at MY hospital!! We get a 10% diff for 3-11 shift and 15% for 11-7. Weekends and holidays are considered no different than any other day. Lovely, huh?

We have a surgeon at our facility that almost always orders pain medication IM instead of IV. Not sure of his rationale, but the patients don't like it. I'd be more comfortable giving a larger dose IM and a smaller one IV. Although it's very time consuming give IV doses every hour or so. Patients requiring frequent dosing should certainly be considered for a PCA, especially on busy Med-Surg units where nurses can easily have 6-8 or more patients each. I think some physicans may order it both ways and leave the route up to the nurse so that they won't be called if the patient loses IV access. JMO, of course.

First of all, I don't understand how NS can ruin a patient's vein in the first place. Maybe I read this wrong though. As a new nurse, do you have someone more experienced you can't turn to for questions when needed? For example, our nurses are required to have another nurse witness the dosing of Heparin drips. Perhaps if this were a policy at your facility, the piggybacking error may have been caught ahead of time. Thankfully, we rarely use Heparin anymore as Lovenox is SO much safer and easier to administer. Of course you cannot go back and "fix" the error now, but I do hope the patient comes through okay. Good luck and I hope you don't lose your job over an honest although "severe" mistake according to your DON.

I was hired almost 10 years ago when the unit was strictly 8 hour shifts. Workers gradually went to 12 hour shifts over the years and now there are just a few of us that meet up that do the 8s. We were told we create "holes" in the schedule when we take time off for vacations, etc. I can understand that. However, we WERE the last to know. For about a year, I did do an 11a-11p shift that I really liked at I DO commute and it was much cheaper on gas, etc. I can't do a 7a-7p shift because of family obligations and nights is out of the question, so 3-11 has worked fairly well over the years. For someone working 7a-3p or even 11p-7a, tacking on 4 hours at the beginning or end of a shift seems easier than transitioning from 3-11 to either days OR nights. My manager claims those of us still doing the 8 hour shifts are her "best" nurses, so surely this isn't a coincidence (we are also the ones with the most seniority and have a higher percentage of PDO time). I've done both and know fully well the pros and cons of doing each, and the 12's ARE very hard on the body even though there are more days off. Our rural hospital was recently bought out by a larger health care organization, so I'm sure that's a major reason for the changes. I know my manager's hands are somewhat tied as she claims the DON is forcing her to go all 12s. She even considered going to all 8s, but she's lose even more nurses that way as those doing the 12s now won't go back to the 8s. So I guess what it boils down to is that our 8s and 12s will no longer co-exist in harmony. I hate the thoughts of starting all over somewhere else, but then I also know my hospital will be losing more than one excellent nurse. All for the sake of progress, I assume. I've been told the hospital owes me nothing despite my loyalty over the years (2 call-ins in 10 years can't be so bad!). So it's sadly all about the bottom line. Thanks to all for the comments! Pursuing the unemployment aspect of it all sounds like a viable option although I hope finding another nurse-friendly job will happen quickly.

So you are only scheduled one week at a time? That doesn't seem right at all. We get our schedules in 4 week increments. The workweek starts on Sunday and the manager is required to post them monthly the Thursday before it goes into effect. That doesn't seem like much notice to me either.

I'm not sure as I'm just now starting to research the legality of it all. I've already turned in my letter of resignation but I want to know if what my hospital is doing is legal. Thanks so much for the quick reply!

I was hired for 8 hour shifts (even signed a paper saying what shift I'd be working), but now my employer is going to mandatory 12 hour shifts. Is this legal for those of us hired for 8 hour shifts to be forced to work 12 hour shifts instead? If so, then why sign that paper in the first place? Thanks!