ptsafety

Seriously, thank you all for your opinions and sharing what is done in your areas. It's SERIOUSLY a very bad problem in our area, and I know in some rougher cities as well, as some RN's I work with who have relocated have told their concerning stories about where they came from and how dangerous they felt it was. I'm glad some of you have not known these problems.

It is not all bad here. Because of the social disparities here, it is a very challenging place to work, with the good RN's being very skilled, not just in Nursing but also Crisis Managment. I don't want to make the wrong impression that working in a high crime area is all bad, it's not. But I do have very valid concerns about why and how are so many of the wrong type able to get into Nursing Programs, past the Board of Nursing and past Personnel departments without being sniffed out.

TT...Yes, yes and yes. I work in a very high crime city, it's very very common for us to get travel RN's who are "tweaking"/high/impaired. Not just in our hospital but all of the hospitals in our city, we frequently put these RNs on the do not call list. I have no interest in moving, there are some extremely well skilled and well educated RN's here, just that maybe because of where we are there are many bad ones as well, but usually they're travel RN's or they move from Hospital to Hospital, state to state.

TT: I too thought that prior charges would prevent Felony Criminals from admissions to programs and also from sitting for the Boards, but in my state apparently not. They can "argue" to be able to do so in this state, and this state is so lenient that it's easily to argue. In my many years of nursing, I have worked in the early years with the best and the brightest. Now, I have worked with many addicts, many of whom I have seen stolen from patients, gave fatal doses of the wrong medications and have made some very crazy mistakes to the demise of patients. Hence, because I have seen so much, this is why for patient safety I hold my beliefs. I guess these safety issues are so accepted by this generation that I will have to accept the patient casualties that occur daily.

In my state, it used to be that Nursing Schools has strict admission policies and limited enrollment. For example, 3.5 GPA, 90+ percentile on the NLN Admission exam, not in college for 15-20 years without a degree due to bad grades. Now it seems tons of Nursing programs have popped up that require very little- no exam, low grades, etc. Now we have a ton of RN grads looking for work. My concern is, many grads are to me a jeopardy to patient safety. For example, I know someone who has been a career Hooker with Meth addiction and Meth brain damaged with an RN degree. Someon else who has been convicted on Felony Drug Dealing with an RN degree. Many known long term meth addicts with degrees, career psychiatric patients often with criminal backgrounds with RN degrees, someone I know who was caught but not convicted of Credit Card Fraud with an RN degree. It seems WAY too easy to get an RN degree nowadays. Most of these people I know took 15-25 years to finally get a degree because they couldn't pass the classes, went to other schools who would accept them, online schools, etc. My question to the "old school" nurses: Do you feel that this is a potential safety issue to patients, their care, their belongings (which can be stolen)? For me, I would NEVER hire anyone like that. For me, you need to have strong judgment, strong science/math skills and sound charcter. You're calculating microdrips, making judgment calls, storing patients' belongings, etc. Tell me what you all think?