jollydogg_RN

I have been on my own now in the ER for about three weeks, not at a level one. I just switched from the OR after being in it for a little over 5 years, circulating and scrubbing a little at the end, last two years travel. Was enrolled in an RNFA program but the timing never worked out with that and travel. I'm loving the switch because after a year of ER I will be so. freaking. marketable. with my OR experience. I've been an RN almost 11 years though, with a year med/surg, a year of LTC supervision, psych, hospice, and other things, so the transition would probably be easier for me. I say GO FOR IT. I was dreading the prospect of sitting around doing BS work waiting for ORs to get back into full swing, and ER was always something I had been considering, so if not now then when?? It's pretty awesome learning everything, getting in good with the staff and the docs, and learning a lot of stuff I've pushed on the backburner and just plain new stuff in general. Relearning all the significant reasons for labs and then applying them to all different types of situations, it's great! Just think, if you do 1-2 years of ER, with your OR background you could easily do PACU, IR, cath lab, and maybe even some step down units. You would be extremely, extremely marketable! That's just my two cents.

Sounds like OP is “asking for a friend”. ??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️

Seriously. That’s what I keep wondering, LOL. ??‍♂️

I’m not surprised at all. You know how many crotchety ole nurse ratchets I dealt with my first year of nursing? Almost made me quit.

.....OK boomer. Can you just retire already with that attitude? Thanks!

Sooo......willing going from the OR to the ED! Have been in the OR the pst five years, two of which were travel. Have been a nurse for almost 11, only the first year was med/surg. Gonna be a crazy training period for me! I consider myself to be pretty intelligent. I’ve done psych, traveled in corrections, I’ve done sick call and worked a little bit in a big prisons “urgent care clinic” while working in their OR, so I’m cool with focused and concise assessments. Any other tips or hints? I’ve heard from some people it’s standing orders, standing orders, standing orders, which is a lot of correctional work. I’m definitely realistic and realize this will be a huge adjustment. Thanks for anything you can add and I apologize if this is a topic beaten to death

Except, as he said in his original post, he would lose out on the opportunity to pick certain weekend days if he was found to be negative, which he was. This is disciplinary in nature. Occurrences just make it one step closer to taking disciplinary action, that’s the whole damn point. Are you just ignoring this?

Theres far and few between nurses who actually belong to unions.

“But an occurrence isn’t disciplinary or a reprimand” ????

Exactly this. That you for reiterating. I tell everyone that the rational side of me thinks business will go back to usual once this settles down slightly and they will give us two pizza parties instead of one, but I sincerely hope not. I hope this brings about some lasting change.

And that’s your problem. People still focused on punishing who they can because it’s easier to take action in that regard than to take the difficult action and stand up for employees, even if it makes them unpopular with superiors. If a persons previous action (late occurrences) have absolutely NOTHING to do with them being forced to quarantine currently and causing a possible termination, and you’re FINDING YOURSELF MAKING JUSTIFICATIONS for that disciplinary action against that employee, then YOU are the problem.

So just screw em, huh? Even if it’s legitimate? You ever think that people call off for bogus reasons, drink and “do other various activities” because time and time again they deal with trickle down BS from management and administrators? Ridiculous policy procedures and the constant demand to work more with less is enough to drive ANY nurse to drink. Nurses are ***ing emotionally bankrupt right now because of the previous decade or so of mistreatment and stupid policies and procedures that are made up by some suit somewhere so disconnected from the actual patient care. Then you have the gall to say stuff like that? Get out of here. The fact that you’re attempting to justify an ABSURD policy about covid absences by using past call-ins as an example (WELLLLL they wouldn’t be in this position IF) is freaking insanity.

That’s my point in all of this. Everyone is so effing tone deaf in all of this.....

But we all know these occurrences are just tally marks for disciplinary action, so to get one of these when told to quarantine because of this virus I think is unreasonable. It’s definitely negative in nature, that along with further negative action of him losing future weekends off.

It definitely is partly semantics, but I still say it’s disciplinary in nature because occurrences are basically just used to measure the need for disciplinary action. Plus it doesn’t look good to anyone, on paper or otherwise. Why should I have negative remarks about me if I’m just following occupational healths guidelines? He also said he’s getting future weekend availability to be off reduced, so yeah that’s sort of a form of punishment. I agree, and hopefully in a few months they will correct all this non-sense. It just seems they could utilize common sense measures in the meantime when it comes to this sort of thing.