RedWhiteBlue

No, renerian, you did not offend me. I wanted to learn. I think the whole thing upset me so much because of the nurse's subsequent actions. And, hey, I did learn a lot. :balloons: :rotfl:

Hey thanks for all the comments. The nurse in question and I did have a talk, but she is still a bully. She leaves me alone now, though. For the person saying I should have reported this if the patient requested and insisted on this being reported - that was the case. The patient was adamant that I report the situation to the director. Hey, Raphael... We all know that's what we should do, and that's easy to do with patients, but not so easy with some other folks (especially this particular nurse). She has pretty much caused everyone on the unit to dislike her and to not trust her. Fortunately we no longer have a charge nurse. We are now responsible for our own team of patients. laurenkist -- I think this Dialectical Behavior Therapy sounds great and I am going to research it more.

I agree a pediatrician in no way should be diagnosing bipolar disorder, but I do think it is possible but rare for a 4 y/o to be bipolar. I personally know a child that age and if he isn't eventually diagnosed as bipolar, I'll be very surprised.

i've been a nurse for 25 years with psych, icu, and er experience, and i have never ever heard of putting restraints on a face down patient. i have heard of briefly doing a facedown physical hold, but that is no longer acceptable in our facility - we only do standing physical holds now. don't forget that im injections can be given in the thigh. i'm not sure if i believe that positional asphyxia can occur if repositioning is done when respirations cease, but recently a paramedic in my area was charged with murder with the premise being positional asphyxia (the person at one point was restrained face down). the paramedic was aquitted, but would you (any of you) want to be charged with murder? for more information on this case (search boggess): archive.dailyindependent.com/ i'm not sure i got the link so that it will actually work, but you can copy and paste....

Thank you all for your help. I have definitely learned a lot. I will have a lot to think about if this situation ever occurs again. We do not have a clear complaints procedure in our facility, but I am going to suggest one. Thank you, Frankcah for what you have said. You seem to have nailed this particular situation right on the head. I have not seen this particular situation happen, and I thought I did the right thing at the time. Most complaints from patients are just nit picky nothings, but I really felt this situation was different. The patient was smart and was not delusional or paranoid. She had no complaints about any other staff member, and other than this one nurse's behavior, she was very pleased with her stay. Like you said, I have beat myself up over this. And, yes this nurse has a history of bullying people. Hey, I mentioned this once before, but I will again - not many of you have commented on the nurse's behavior toward me. She called me at home, and this was not a nice call, either, as she was screaming at me. I think calling me at home AND screaming at me were very inappropriate. I can understand that she was upset, but I rather thought this was a big overreaction to the situation. What do all of think about this? Oh, and by the way, on our unit, when we work as charge, there are only one to five other people working (usually two others) and that includes one to two therapists. Our charge nurses are not responsible for any type of employee evaluations, suggestions for employee improvement, etc. Our charge nurses still do patient care and so they are not considered the type of charge nurse that that is in a supervisory position (our job descriptions support this). I would say most people would call this a team leader. I have worked in hospitals where the charge nurses were responsible for much, much more and definitely were supervisors. All of your comments have been immensely appreciated, and I welcome and want more. Thanks!

No, Mag48293, you did not offend me. And, I have read everything on this board I could find about BPD and staff splitting. I think that if the nurse in question had said something like, "Perhaps you could have handled this situation differently...." Instead she was obnoxious and rude to me. I think this is what has upset me more about this situation than anything else. It doesn't help that the director did not keep my confidence as she had said she would. Also, I wonder why the director didn't tell me perhaps I could have handled this differently. Maureeno, the director was not on the unit at that particular time. I didn't observe the charge nurse being rude in this situation, but I (and everyone else on our unit) has observed her being rude at one time or the other. She's difficult to work with and all but one other staff member would like to not have to work with her at all..... About 1/2 the time I work, I'm in charge so I do feel comfortable enforcing unit rules. I just really thought this situation was different --- As you all have said though, I was sucked in. No one on the unit wants to discuss conflicts with this nurse. Anyone else, I have no problem with. We do get a chance to work on those lovely treatment plans. I didn't want to mention this nurse's previous behavior to begin with because it had no bearing on my decision to go to the director. By the way, our director is not a nurse but a _ um, well, she has a bachelor's in Psychology and is working on her Master's degree. FYI - I have asked three people on our unit how they would have handled this situation. One told me the same as all of you. The other two said I did the right thing in this particular case. I asked another very good friend of mine, and she said the same thing all of you have said. I hope this never happens again (Ha, Ha, Ha), but if it does, you all have helped me immensely (and no, I won't call the director). Thanks a BUNCH!

Okay, I knew that might be the response, but this situration did not seem to match the typical BPD antics. She also did not have a diagnosis of BPD. Are there exceptions to this rule? Also, what do all of you think about what the charge nurse said to me? I'm upset about the way she acted. In all my years of nursing I have NEVER been accused of being unproffessional and I'm not a malicious person. As a matter of fact, I've been told repeatedly over my nursing career that I am kind and caring. Also I have had other complaints about this nurse and I have always gone to her in the past. That's been the case every other time a patient has complained about other staff. I truly thought I did the right thing at the time. This has surely been a learning experience. :chair:

Okay, I need HELP! I've been in nursing for many years, but I've only been working in psych for about two years. I recently cared for a patient who was depressed because of a recent romantic breakup. This patient pulled me aside and told me that the charge nurse had been very rude to her. She was very upset and asked to speak to the director of our unit Since the complaint was about the charge nurse, and I did not feel like the patient was just trying to get sympathy, I told the director that the patient wanted to speak to her. I aksed the director to please keep my name out of it because I didn't want any trouble with this nurse. Well, the director told the nurse, following which the nurse called me at home, telling me she didn't appreciate me telling the director about the complaint against her and that I should have come to her because she was the charge nurse and because she felt she should have been told so she could talk to the patient. She said that I was malicious and unproffessional for speaking to the director and that I was just feeding into the patient and causing staff splitting. She said that this was just BPD behavior (patient did not have a diagnosis of borderline personality) and that if hadn't been so inexperienced that I wouldn't have done this. I did not see the borderline type behavior of he said, she said, I don't like you, I don't like her.... I have asked two other nurses their opinion of this and I've gotten two different answers. One says I should have spoken with the nurse directly and the other says I did the right thing. I've tried to keep the facts to the basics, because I need answers. What do all you out there think! Thanks