nurseogden

so do any of you who share the dysfunctional family thing with me feel it has negatively affected you in nursing. I have a really difficulty time with relationships. After 32 years of nursing, I have just lost my 3rd job due to poor interpersonal relationships. Not that I didn't try. Counseling, antidepressents, etc. It is just some of those ingrained reactions just rise to the surface unexpectedly and unwillingly when you are under stress. And of course, nursing has become one of the most stressful jobs around.

smart smart

Good for you

thank you for starting this thread. i definitely came from a dysfunctional family. basically i consider having come from no family at all. it had defintely affected me positively and negatively as a nurse. having been a nurse for 32 years...i have learned a lot off the top of my head postive it is much easier to sympathize and even empathize with my patients that have it rough. having had an alcoholic mother, though i never have been a drinker myself, i definitely can understand and feel much compassion for those who have addictions. (mine is diet coke and food) it is much easier for me to let the little things slide, such as minor insults, and minor injustices, because i know how much worse it can be. many of my co workers feel that so much is due them. they complain about a lot of things up to an including having to clock in and out and wear a uniform. i have been thankful for the security of the job and have loved being able to bring a little solace to others who are hurting. negative my background did not give me the greatest coping and communicaton skills. i have suffered multiple complaints against me because of this. though mostly, the complaints are due to relations with other employees, on a rare occasion a patient has complained that i was inappropriate.. i never learned the proper social etiquette that others with normal family lives usually learn. i, though, usually able to do damage control when this happens, have lost two jobs because of it, and left another because i knew it was coming. for the most part, i am cheerful and cooperative. i learned how to interact with patients when i worked in a small hospital in a navy town taking care of all the old retired navy men. fortunately and unfortunately, i learned their sense of humor and style of interaction. this works most of the time, but not always. i also learned to be direct....have a problem...go to the person and address it...get it out....get it over with... forget it... and go on. unfortunately, many other nurses don't handle that direct interaction well, especially the forget it part. i have never been one to write people up, but usually end up written up for confronting them.l so growing up with dysfunctionality has helped and hindered me in my career... i still wouldn't trade my nursing career for anything in the world. through nursing, i have been fulfilled both personally and professionally.

[color=#5f497a]i have worked both in and outpatient settings. yes, the change in orders does wreak the occasional havoc with orders written prior to admission, especially in the inpatient setting. however, we live in a benefits outweigh the inconvienence world of medicine. for the most part, having orders ahead of time gives us ample time to be prepared for the needs of the patients. the changes received at the last minute are inconvenient, but it still seems that the patient is better served by orders sent ahead of time. [color=#5f497a]our practice in the inpatient setting is to have necessary equipment available, but not to enter the orders into the system until actual arrival of the patient. [color=#5f497a]on an outpatient basis, this is not usually a problem. [color=#5f497a]have a great and wonderful nursing career. :)

evening shift isn't all that bad if you are young and don't have children. It is a lot easier to go to the gym in the morning and get all your stuff done before work. If you get in the habit of going to bed at a decent time like midnight, then you can get up early and get lots of stuff done during the day. If you like to party (I never did that) then you can go out after work when things are really hopping and sleep in. It is a win win until you have children that are school aged. Enjoy nursing. :)

i have to be the devil's advocate regarding even walmart has dress code because i support coded uniforms for patient's sakes. nurses are supposed to be "professionals" and many feel like forcing them into standardized uniforms takes away from that status. tthey feel it means the management doesn't trust them to dress appropriately. though this is not the reason for the policy, i can understand where they are coming from

with all the issues facing us in nursing, what uniform you wear should be the least of our worries!!! if it makes these older patients more comfortable and they recognize us better, then why not conform and do this little bit to please them. i have worked many hospitals that require certain colors either by position or department. this has been around for as long as i have been in nursing. the "no uniform policy" is the most recent, and obviously didn't work very well since most institutions are requiring nurses to be differentiated by their dress again anyway.

One last note. For a lawsuit to be viable, there has to have been irreversible damage to the patient. Going one shift with UTI, if it didn't result in septic shock, is not irreversible damage. I think you are safe on this on.

Most professional nurses do not quit without notice. More likely they were let go. It is the policy at our hospital that other staff are not notified when staff are disciplined and are not allowed to talk to the other staff members about any discipline they receive. So if they were fired, the managers would probably say something like "so and so will not be with us any more". and that would be that.

Depends on where you live. I live in Indiana. There are no laws to protect your employment here. You can go in one day and they can look at you and say they don't like the way you combed your eyebrow and let you go and you have not recourse!! Of course, most facilities set their own boundaries and regulations so this doesn't happen. In a unionized state, things would be different. I guess, what I am saying is it is better to just go ahead an jump through the hoops. If you pass no problem. If you don't, then appeal it. Never start a ripple in the water if you are not prepared to handle the tidal wave that it might cause!!

It might be unrealistic to expect your manager to do actual patient care in and area that she is not used do working. More importantly, it might be a patient safety issue if she is not used to the medications and treatments those patients receive. She would have to be oriented like any other nurse. Many nurse managers have never actually done patient care and would be a risk if placed in that position. My manager has NEVER done direct patient care and I wouldn't want her doing it in our unit for safety of the patient.

You seem to have misread the information. This student never said the nurse was hiding in a closet to text!!!

I grew up in Jacksonville Beach Florida. Lived there until I married at age 30 Loved it would go back in a heartbeat. I live in Midwest now and 20 years ago when I came here I took a 6 dollar per hour cut in pay and had to start paying state income tax. My Standard of Living was much better there. Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Miami, all have great access to the arts!

it never pays to cause ripples in the water unless it will prevent a tidal wave? the nurse may have had an isolated day of having to text to her child because the child was ill or some other major life issue. if she did not neglect or endanger the patient, cut her some slack. most nurses want to give good care, but they are people with families and lives that they are having to live around a set schedule. she probably worked that day because she didn't want to leave the unit shorthanded when she would have rather been at home with her family or whatever else was distracting her.