leilo0

I work in a Catholic teaching hospital and the original building was built in the late 1800s. I've heard stories of patients seeing a faceless nun nurse wearing a habit during nightly rounds. I used to work in the medicine unit and would rotate to nights often. One night, a co-worker asked me to round on our patients together. For some reason she did not want to go in this particular isolation room alone. Usually with negative pressure rooms, we stay in the ante room and look in on the patient through the glass door to make sure they're okay. Apparently the night before, she was rounding on her partner's patients when she saw a shadowy figure standing over the patient in the dark room. She didn't think much of it as it was common for family to stay over in our unit. But it turns out, the patient had no family member with them that night. During nightshifts we are allowed a sleep break and we have a covering partner. There's a corner storage room where staff can put a few stretchers during break and this place feels creepy even during the day. I don't use this particular area but one night my usual place was occupied. So there I was lying down in one of the stretchers with other people on break. I don't usually sleep during these sleep breaks in case something happens to one of my patients. But I kept having dreams(?) visions (?) of someone in scrubs walking back and forth beside the stretchers. At one point I had my arm sticking out of the blanket when I felt something slowly clasp my hand and hold it. I simply changed position and yelled at it to Go away in my head. Last one, this happened at the geriatric rehab clinic I worked at. There's an activity corner for the patients located beside the staff office and its visible from the reception area. I walked in one morning and said hello to the front desk when I see an old lady with a neon pink top with her back turned holding on to the grab bars along the wall. Strange, we never have patients this early? As I turned the corner and got to the office, the area was completely empty. I go in the office and go back out to chat with our clerical and mentioned the patient being so early. Our clerical was confused and told me no one has checked in yet. But but, who was that at the back when I said hello to you a few minutes ago??? Needless to say, I gave her a scare early in the morning.

The only cure for me was leaving the bedside. At 8 years in, I still dread going in to work, still sleepless before a shift, still felt like a sinking ship going in. I thought the problem was me until I switched to outpatient. I still get paid almost the same except loosing the shift differential but my quality of life is so much better. My only dread is having to do patient lectures for 45 minutes three times a week but I'd take that over coming on the floor and not knowing what disaster could be waiting for me. Outpatient is busy in a different way but I'd take it any day. Hope you'll find something

Your daughter is quite an admirable, responsible young adult! I wish I had the same courage as she did and did not buy in to my mother's own pressure to find something stable and 'well paying'.and convinced me to go in to nursing. Until now, I still harbor some resentment that my mom talked me into it though I take responsibility for my actions now for the future. Sometimes, we just have to trust that our children will figure out their own way through life and bless you for trusting in her to do so.

I worked befside fulltime for years. I don’t know I managed. Whew! Then when I got the guts and a part time position twice a week showed up, I grabbed it. That only held me out for two more years until I went casual and even doing one shift every month was too much for my sanity. I was just done and burned out. What I learned is that if you keep pushing for something that isn’t for you, something will give and I learned that the hard way. I feel for the OP. I wrote something similar to this post when I graduated. Felt like ages ago but my sentiment is still the same. I hope she finds her way through life, I can empathize with what she’s going through and wish her all the best.

Curious as to why would you want your daughter to go through that knowing what you know about nursing? There are other jobs out there that make decent pay, even better than nursing without the negative stuff people couldn't put up with about this job. As a nursing student, one nurse I followed told me she begged her daughter not to be a nurse and I could not for the life out of me understand this until I was almost done with my program but what to do? I sucked it up. Made it through five years of bedside nursing until I could not do it anymore - bedside nurse in a inner city hospital where the patients are not for the faint of heart. Now I do clinic nursing where I still make a difference. Don't let anyone lead you to believe it is bedside nursing or bust. There are ways to help others without sacrificing your own well being.

This is exactly what I'm getting at. It's the small things that culminate to a lot of things. The onus is always on the nurse and you're pulled away from doing your actual job. And so, in paper you are a nurse but a good part of the day, you're a porter, housekeeping, phlebotomist, PT etc on top of being a nurse. At the end of our shifts we wonder why we stay longer to finish up charting, didn't have adequate breaks, missed a critical lab value, making a med error OR handing over a non urgent treatment to oncoming shift, a good part of the reason is the never ending tasks. And to pay me to do portering duties on a nursing wage doesn't sound like a good business strategy either. As long as we accept these terms then we can complain about staffing and workload issues and nothing will change. Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg for our profession :)

This is exactly my point. I've seen comments pointing out that this incident seems complicated for housekeeping to handle but this isn't rocket science. I had sick patients that night that Iwas watching over, meds to give, charting to be done amongst other things and I don't see why housekeeping couldn't be trained adequately to clean the mess when they have access to proper equipment to do the job..

Your facility must have better toilet paper than we do. On top of being rendered ineffective when it comes to pasty formed poo, it also has the tendency to clog our bathroom toilets so towels were the way to go and I can use my feet instead of getting down on my hands. I do prefer a mop but I'd have to apply to housekeeping before i get access to them.

I've had gloves rip on me so yes, I feel the need to double glove. feces was all over the side rails so I gowned up just in case. I tried not to go into the poopy details but it wasn't just a matter of solid poop on the ground. It was on the bed, the patient, his clothes. The stools that were on the ground weren't rock hard stools that got picked up in one scoop. It was a happy trail on to the bathroom. We had to clean up the patient, toss his street clothes in the laundry, run wipes on his bed. siderails and bedside table. The patient ended up making more mess in the bathroom. I didn't emphasize this as I know it was my responsibility to clean up the patient and the bedside area but I wanted to ask what the common policy is when it happens somewhere other than the bedside. I'm not sure what didn't add up with this incident but I do love reading a conspiracy theory or two!

Seeing the general response from everyone, I think I can guess what the answer is

Haha. I have not heard of that phrase but will have to use that on my coworkers! I think one of the issues we have with our profession is how broad our scope of practice is and we can't set firm boundaries as a result. As nurses, we'd be hard pressed to fight against exposure to bodily fluids (how i wish) but as a cleaner in a hospital setting, I'm not sure what the expectations are when applying for a job in a place that does involve body fluids. It just proves though that their unions are much better negotiators than ours. It's just not this case though, even porters are prohibited from helping out with patient transfers and that's added task on top off the ones that allied health heap on to us. All this while being responsible for critical aspects of patient care.

The patient was not on any isolation precaution but it was everywhere and I wasn't going to risk making contact. lol, I don't mind clearing a good part of the mess but I feel its' almost unreasonable to ask that no evidence should be left behind

Providing hygiene care when a patient soil themselves is a given but what happens when poo appears in public areas or shared spaces? The other day, I had a patient lose control over their bowels warning, graphic description* This patient stood up and proceeded to leave formed stools on the floor leading to the bathroom and painted all over the toilet bowl. I was told by the cleaners that there shouldn't be any visible poo before they can come in to surface clean the area. As per their union policy, they are not to be exposed to bodily fluids, etc. So, my buddy nurse and I gowned up, double gloved and rid the area of feces using towels because as usual, all the CNA's are on break and there's only one running around for 65 acutely ill patients. The cleaners finally came with mops and appropriate cleaning equipment to finish off while we had to get over the nooks and crannies using our feet and pick up stool while keeping an ear out for our patients who might be crashing and I wonder if this is something I can bring up to union to influence policy change. It took nearly 45 minutes to clean the place without the right equipment but should we be given mops and take on a cleaner's task when we have our own nursing responsibilities to take care off? It just didn't seem like an appropriate use of nursing time and I also would like to know if this is standard policy elsewhere?

Too many reasons why our working standards are below par compared to other healthcare professionals and I wonder how we got to this. I see PTs and OTs work with assistants that are exclusively assigned to them and they never work with patients alone while we on the other hand have to struggle for help because there isn't any or someone just doesn't want to do the job.

Thank you for your reply Melissa. I read your article through a header under "Tips that will save you from burnout" and with that premise, it did struck a chord. Your article on its' own is helpful in reminding us the importance of practicing self-care because bedside or not, nursing is a challenging job and we all want to do right by our patients but not at the expense of our own well-being. My thoughts were meant to be a blanket statement of my own observations regarding the conversations we have about our profession. I apologize if I worded it in a way that discredits your non bedside role. I don't doubt the challenges you face in your current position and with that, I believe that it's important that we change the nursing rhetoric from self care to questioning why our working conditions and standards are what they are, The healthcare system and environment is evolving. Patients are sicker and heavier while nurses are burned out and overload with work. I'm sure other allied health professional face their own issues but you notice a vast difference between our working condition with theirs - they get to go to lunch on time, leave on time. If they're short, they just see less patients. I'm not sure what I can do on my own, as I have already made an honest decision for myself to leave this profession but for those who have yet to walk this path and for those who continue to do so, I hope for a better way. I want to thank you sincerely for having an open mind to my comment and for being a voice to this profession that greatly needs it.