mehitabela

What a cranky thread! I'm an RN Unit Manager and I keep a small supply of ten dollar gift cards to various food places and an even smaller supply of twenty dollar gift cards of the same sort. I give them out about once a week and always to someone who has really outdone themselves...by not only doing their job well, but doing it with an awesome attitude, a willingness to pitch in, and an outstanding work ethic. When I started here a year ago, there were nurse/ CNA wars, shift wars, constant gossip and nastiness. It's been slow going. I haven't made a big production out of the gift cards and I don't do it in a big public way. I take the person aside and sincerely thank them and tell them what it is that impressed me and hand them the card. Of course word gets around and because it's random and unannounced, morale has improved considerably in the last year. ...and I simply don't respond to gossip...act as if I don't understand it, and now they don't gossip...at least not around me! Some of the other managers think I'm nuts ( I don't have a discretionary budget...its out of my pocket)... However....my unit is rarely short staffed, people ask to be assigned there, my patients are happier, and so is my staff. It's a nice change to see and if it costs me ten to twenty bucks a week then so be it. I also occasionally get us pizza and ( gasp) candy as a general thanks after a tough week. I don't see why this is considered so terrible. Ok, in a perfect world all employees would do an awesome job all the time. Nursing can be a pretty thankless profession sometimes...providing thanks and incentive works.

Oh, I didn't mention. I work nights, 7-7. Our patients are the normal/ ridiculous mixture of inappropriate for this snf/high acuity- should be in a hospital types. I have worked there for a month. The other night, three of my pts managed to be "found on the floor" (they never fell, dontcha know!) and in the midst of all that mess, I had to send a pt out cuz they were...not ok. Four hours and ten reams of paperwork later I finally punched out at ten am. And guess who just got her first write up for clocking unauthorized hours!!

How about this? My snf has about 120 beds. We have an accountant, a secretary, a social worker, a dietician, an activities director. Then we have the DON. We have three RNACS and I'm not sure what it is they do that someone else can't. Each shift has an RN supervisor. Then theres a floor RN (me) with 65 patients and three or four aides. The RNACS are 9-5 and do not do patient care. We have so many cooks in the kitchen that no one knows what's going on! Can anyone explain why the DON can't delegate directly to the shift RN supervisor (who also does not see patients unless we code someone) instead of going thru the RNACS? As far as I can tell, the only thing they do is orient new staff via paper and video and do paperwork of some sort. I bet their wage would be adequate funding for six more RNs

Hello, Tomorrow I will be shadowing at an ED that might hire me as an RN. Any suggestions? Pet peeves when being shadowed? Tips to ingratiate myself to the loverly person I will be following around all day like a duckling? I have a year under my belt as a nurse...on a geriatric unit in a hospital and while it wasn't LTC precisely, it wasn't too far off. HELP!

About the laptop issue...I have to admit that while I lived for clinical and the experience that it afforded me, lecture in the nursing courses left me wanting. I had very good, consistent grades and tests were a non issue. I feel that every instructor is worth hearing through a week of lecture before I decide if they are reading PowerPoint slides at me or if they really are teaching me. I feel every instructor deserves a class full of quiet, respectful and attentive students regardless. I would sit in the very back near the door and with a muted laptop go about my business, keeping a weather ear out for new and pertinent info that was not included on the slides. If there was no attendance policy on lectures, after the first few weeks I would stop going and sit instead in the lounge where I could study in more depth what interested me and not disturb the class. Most of my instructors were fine with that once they saw my grades and work ethic (I still got to school on time and participated in/attended all in-class presentations). They saw that I wasn't trying to sleep in or get out of projects and that I regularly checked in with class and contributed in clinical so they stopped worrying. Those same instructors could be heard reaming out other students regarding attendance but I think the distinction is that some people are capable of learning this way and some need to be spoon fed the slides word for word. I happen to have ADHD and while on the unit it's helpful in the multi tasking department, in lectures it was very frustrating. Nothing wrong with either way as long as you respect the people around you. The few who had attendance policies (not many) usually were also the ones who truly used the slides as a rough guideline for their lecture and were worth attending.

I had my middle school principle on my unit...the one that flunked me! I went in at the beginning of the shift and surprise...she/he remembered me! I laughed at the look on her/his face (kindly) and sat down with her/him and told her/him that I would take good care of them but if it was not comfortable that I would not feel badly if another nurse was requested. I also mentioned patient confidentiality...(a surprising number of pts don't think of the fact that we can't talk about them) and the person relaxed and smiled and said if I was ok with it so were they. No problems after that. I think just reassuring and giving them the option was enough.

Meriwhen, my psych clinical instructor had the perfect solution to inappropriate dress. She warned us at the beginning of the semester that she kept a big baggy ugly but professional outfit in her trunk. If we showed up dressed inappropriately, we had two options...change into the ugly suit, or go home and be marked as a no call no show. The first time a girl wore culottes and we saw the ugly suit was also the last time we messed with the dress code! She was an awesome instructor!

Incidentally, I happen to agree with a lot of what you've posted but like I said...the flavor is c diffy.

Mindlor, I can only comment on how I perceive the tone of your posts. It has nothing to do with the title for me. It was more the typed repitition "Leslie Leslie,Leslie" and " be advised" and" yes, yes I agree, let us all be careful when we judge" and "wow, hm, well, here's the deal". It just has a very negative flavor to it. If this is the way you are accustomed to speaking, you may not even know you do it but I do think if a nurse had to deal with even perceived condescending behavior or perceived arrogance (even if it's just a quirk in your way of speaking) it would put them off....especially since you are a student. Pax...

If you speak in the same overbearing and condescending manner at clinicals that you come across in print it may be that the old and crusty nurses have very good reason to be having a bad day....especially if they're dealing with your attitude in addition to their daily patient issues.

It has been two months since my last post on this topic. Last month I was fired after a bizzarely rapid succession of write ups...two regarding issues that I rectified quickly as they were brought to my attention (tasks...not patient care or charting). Then I became very ill for three days. My doctor wrote two letters. One excusing my absence due to illness, and one informing my employer that my illness was due to environmental conditions at the hospital that exacerbated an existing medical condition. I called off the day before my scheduled shift to give adequate time to cover the unit and told the DON that I was on antibiotics, had a note, needed three days. She said fine. After this I worked for another week, came to work one day and was handed my termination letter and escorted off the premises. I appealed. Denied. Saw a lawyer who told me I had a good case for wrongful termination but since it was employment law would not work on contingency...cant afford $350/ hour to retain him. The most peculiar part of this sad tale is that two days prior I had finally landed an interview on the unit of my choice. Now that I'm fired however, I am ineligible to work for this company.

My daughter is fifteen and volunteers through the junior volunteer program at my hospital actually on my unit. See if you have something like that where you live. With parental consent, of course. Sometimes she fills water pitchers or spends time with some of our older and lonely patients. Junior volunteers are a godsend with some of our more needy patients. If you can't find something like this, hang in there...you'll be old enough in just a few years. Good luck in your endeavors!

Thanks everybody, I am willing to go anywhere in terms of med surg, icu, ortho, and will definitely be reworking my resume. I'll let you know how it goes! Agency is an option...I figured at least I could get a good idea of how the staff is on different units that way. My major concern is being able to find a unit that has decent people on it! I wouldn't even mind another TCU unit if my coworkers were mostly concerned with their patients instead of this high school BS I'm dealing with now!

Hi everyone. As a new grad in the current economy I took the first (and only) position available as an RN on a TCU in a hospital. I have stuck it out for a year on a unit with a truly awful culture, consistently understaffed, management that has long since forgotten what it's like to be on the floor, coworkers that run on the not my patient not my hall theory. No matter what shift I work, the nurses are sweet as pie to each other and trash talk any nurse that isn't currently working that day. I leave feeling emotionally drained and out of sorts from the drama, not to mention the patient load which averages ten patients each, usually with no aid. I am desperate to get out! One of the only good things I can say about my time here is that it has taught me time management. I feel I would be capable of almost anything! The problem is that I have put out about fifty applications and have not received so much as a nibble. I have heard that people do not like to hire RNs who have only had LTC experience and even though we are a hospital based unit that gets a much higher than average acuity patient, new employers think that we would not be capable of dealing on a med surg unit. How do I get around this??

I have severe ADHD and I have always been open about it. When you go to the drug test, take your script with you. The test results are not evaluated for the employer. I was told that they just say pass or fail and if you test pos. For your script med(in my case adderall) they don't mention it. However I told my employer because I felt it would be better for her to know if I ramble verbally or have to talk out my thought process aloud...why it is I do that. When I was hired I told my coworkers and asked them to feel free to tell me "I got it" if I started to repeat myself ( I tend to do that). This way I could catch myself and still not out myself to the patients or families. Having a few " safeties in place really helps and my coworkers have been awesome. One of the positives about ADHD is I can multiple task like nobodies business which is great for nurses...my brain always runs on turbo so I'm never tired of critically thinking...now if only I could shut it off when I leave work! Lol