MrsK1223

how does $14/ hr sound? Not getting paid for snow days, spring and fall break and summer break isn't a benefit...unless you're rolling in dough from another source.

I am a new MDS coordinator and I hate raps and have heard from the best and she hates them as well. Our new DON used to do MDS and she hates them as well. It's too time consuming and I really don't see the point when you're doing the care planning anyway.

I thought I'd update on the call thing. Once our corporate clinical lead found out what kind of deal the administrative nurses were dealing with, she was floored and said this is the only one of their facilities (out of 15) that had such crazy ways of doing things. Immediately effective, CNA's are not to be calling the administrative nurses at home...they are to call into the facility and it gets taken care of there. The only call the adminstrative nurses take is for other nurses. So for those that seemed to think it I was being unreasonable for c/o call....once the adminstrator had the DON give her the call in numbers...she was also floored. 29 call in's in the last two weeks...all night shift CNA's calling between the hours of 1am and 4am to our homes. 26 call in's the previous 2 weeks before that. Not one nurse called in that month. The DON had this information and done nothing. She has let the CNAs know she needs them more than need us and they take advantage. Finally the Administrator and Lead corporate nurse is nipping this call in thing in the bud. The DON had to actually take call recently and she left the entire skilled unit without an nurse, LPN or RN for an entire nightt...only a med tech was on the unit. The previous team of adminstrative nurses that were recently fired, had taken the staffing issue upon themselves and off anyone else which has corporate and everyone trying to figure out why...why would you want deal with staffing all day and all night every night and do your MDS stuff. We've also found that there have been tons of $$$ lost because of the way they were coding MDS assessments. I know I'm not crazy now...or unreasonable. Things can be changed and improved upon if we only speak up and say...Hey this is not reasonable and necessary.

:cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers::cheers:

Call without pay is unacceptable...plain and simple.

I'd like to see your excel for the pps. Could you PM it to me? Thanks in advance!!!! Melissa

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, educator positions are a rarity here as is anything else I've ever been interested in, in and outside of nursing. I have applied for a Health Educator position at a local hospital, but it was asked if I had physical education background...which I don't...and that seems to be the driving force as this position has been posted before and I never got a call back for an interview. But it is one for a community education for nutrition and physical well being and overall healthy lifestyles. I think I would be great with this type of job. I love preventative care and education. I've even thought of going to the health department but they don't have openings and when other counties have a job posted, the pay is a mere $15/hr for RN. What a slap in the face. I just can't live on that, when I've been used to 32-35/hr. I would take a pay cut at any hospital or LTC in my area but not to $15/hr. I just can't get over the poor pay. As far as the MDS Coordinator position goes, I'm sure they won't have many knocking down doors with MDS experience and the ad said experience was desired but training would be provided if not. This is supposed to be one of the most reputable LTC facilities in the area. You never see job openings there. It's a 75 bed facility. Some of the facility is assisted living only. Thanks for your information!:paw:

Hi. I have been a nurse for 7 yrs. I've been out of patient care for the last year and traveling doing education for a pharmaceutical company. The travel is getting old and it's not as glamorous as many think it is, not to mention you have to do 2-4 shifts a day, meaning...morning shifts, evening and night shifts....to catch nurses on all shifts...so it really messes with your body and mind. I'm ready to take on a new challenge and I found an MDS Coordinator position open in my area and I've been researching this specialty. I've found some great advice from reading these threads as well as questions to ask my interviewer. I don't have any experience in this but thought if anyone had any new advice for the interview I would certainly appreciate it! Looking forward to a new challenge!

Hi. I have been an RN for 7 yrs. I've had my ups and downs with nursing in general. I've been on a hiatus from direct patient care for a year now but have been in the education/consulting arena during this time. It has required lots of travel and I'm thinking of trying to reenergize my nursing career. The area I'm in is limited in it's offerings. There is an OB position opening in a local hospital which is rare. I'm very open to leanring a new type of nursing and thought I would check in to see how other nurses like it. My experience in nursing has mostly been outpatient surgery/endoscopy, some psych and dermatology, pharmaceutical education, infection control. I'd like to get into education but opportunites are not open in my area. I need a new area to explore and to get excited about. There are so many areas in nursing to do, I jsut haven't foound my niche'. Any suggestion?

I was fired a few months ago after I requested an investigation into an incident between my clinical director and I. She was fresh out of nursing school, had no business in her position and was only hired after everyone that was qualified laughed at the administrator after hearing the pay. The administrator was a bit unqualified for her position as well. This is a small place and had been becoming toxic by the day. Anyway...it was the best thing they ever did for me....since then, the clinical director has been caught in lie after lie, dropping the ball in so many areas the doctors are getting upset with her, people are leaving left and right. The first thing that tipped me off to her negligent and oblivious ingnorance in the nursing field was when she TOLD me that I HAD TO give medications to a certain doctor's patients, after a policy went in effect that no nursing staff is to ever for no reason dispense medication to any patient. It had to be done by the physician in person. We had a doctor to get chewed out by a patient and rightfully so and the clinical director didn't want to tell him he would have to give out his medications to each patient since his office failed to do it prior to surgery like they are supposed to do. I refused and she went to PACU and told them they would have to....they refused and told her that she was not going to put their licenses on the line because she was ignorant of the law and our own facilities policies. IDIOT! She had even told us that she wasn't used to MANUAL labor after she failed to staff appropriately and had to actually circulate a room..this is a nurse out of school for not even a year and half....clueless I tell ya! What was administration thinking....and to think they fired me because I knew if they checked out what happened they would have seen what an idiot she was then but no, I lost my job of 3 yrs....she had been there 4 months. She would surprise us with changes that put our patients at risk as well as our own safety and I was very vocal about it and made my own nursing decisions about how to transport patients in regards to how well they ambulated and such. She didn't like that I looked out for my patients, myself, and the surgery center...in the end...something bad was going to happen and it was probably going to result in a lawsuit but you couldn't tell her or administration that....I was supposed to do what she said and not use my own 7 yrs of nursing experience to decide what was the safest mode to transport my patient. Wasn't going to put them at risk just because she was in an authorative position and just ignorant on top of that. It gets better and probably happened to lead you in a better direction. Glad I'm out of that mess. It does get better!

I was fired a few months ago after I requested an investigation into an incident between my clinical director and I. She was fresh out of nursing school, had no business in her position and was only hired after everyone that was qualified laughed at the administrator after hearing the pay. The administrator was a bit unqualified for her position as well. This is a small place. Anyway...it was the best thing they ever did for me....since then, the clinical director has been caught in lie after lie, dropping the ball in so many areas the doctors are getting upset with her, people are leaving left and right. The first thing that tipped me off to her negligent and oblivious ingnorance in the nursing field was when she TOLD me that I HAD TO give medications to a certain doctor's patients, after a policy went in effect that no nursing staff is to ever for no reason dispense medication to any patient. It had to be done by the physician in person. We had a doctor to get chewed out by a patient and rightfully so and the clinical director didn't want to tell him he would have to give out his medications to each patient since his office failed to do it prior to surgery like they are supposed to do. I refused and she went to PACU and told them they would have to....they refused and told her that she was not going to put their licenses on the line because she was ignorant of the law and our own facilities policies. IDIOT! She had even told us that she wasn't used to MANUAL labor after she failed to staff appropriately and had to actually circulate a room..this is a nurse out of school for not even a year and half....clueless I tell ya! What was administration thinking....and to think they fired me because I knew if they checked out what happened they would have seen what an idiot she was then but no, I lost my job of 3 yrs....she had been there 4 months. Glad I'm out of that mess. It does get better!

I USED to be a circulator in outpatient surgery when we got a new clinical director, who had only been out of nursing school a year and half if that long, no surgical experience, no managment experience...was just dumb enough to take on that responsibility for such little pay...I guess she thought she would get to sit in an office all day every day...anyway....she came into the OR's without masks and surgical hats constantly...which is a huge NO NO in surgery....she had to be continually reminded. Then she proceeded to come into the OR's while procedures were going on an obliviously contaminate the surgical techs or the sterile fields. She would point at things on the sterile mayo stands with barely a cm's distance and ask what this or that was....and she wasn't wearing sterile gloves. She would laugh and slap/pat the surgical tech wearing the sterile gowns. She was constantly being called on it...but for her position, she should have known better and not come in acting like surgery is no big deal...which she said on several occasions. Her behavior ended up getting me fired when I called her on one too many mistakes and inappropriate behavior in a OR. IDIOT she is.

I was fired a few months ago after I requested an investigation into an incident between my clinical director and I. She was fresh out of nursing school, had no business in her position and was only hired after everyone that was qualified laughed at the administrator after hearing the pay. The administrator was a bit unqualified for her position as well. This is a small place. Anyway...it was the best thing they ever did for me....since then, the clinical director has been caught in lie after lie, dropping the ball in so many areas the doctors are getting upset with her, people are leaving left and right. The first thing that tipped me off to her negligent and oblivious ingnorance in the nursing field was when she TOLD me that I HAD TO give medications to a certain doctor's patients, after a policy went in effect that no nursing staff is to ever for no reason dispense medication to any patient. It had to be done by the physician in person. We had a doctor to get chewed out by a patient and rightfully so and the clinical director didn't want to tell him he would have to give out his medications to each patient since his office failed to do it prior to surgery like they are supposed to do. I refused and she went to PACU and told them they would have to....they refused and told her that she was not going to put their licenses on the line because she was ignorant of the law and our own facilities policies. IDIOT! She had even told us that she wasn't used to MANUAL labor after she failed to staff appropriately and had to actually circulate a room..this is a nurse out of school for not even a year and half....clueless I tell ya! What was administration thinking....and to think they fired me because I knew if they checked out what happened they would have seen what an idiot she was then but no, I lost my job of 3 yrs....she had been there 4 months. Glad I'm out of that mess. It does get better!

Not a regret but wish I would have made better decisions earlier in life and taken different roads of interest. Would not do it again if I could go back.

Thank you all for your feedback. I pretty much knew when that happened yesterday it was the final straw for me. I've been looking for new job opportunities for weeks now and have gotten my resume on some of the online job sites like careerbuilder and such. It's just a matter of finding something I like and can live with. I really love doing the outpatient surgery thing, and has allowed me some degree of a family life and ability to attend classes. I'm working on a communications degree. So don't think that I haven't seen that this job is going no where fast. I just felt that it was a matter of principle to make sure I'm written up after the facts are obtained not before. I guess my question to you all is that is it really worth spending the money on an attorney. I have contacted the labor board but I'm still waiting to hear from them. Again, thanks for your replies.