Maine

I love the agency I work for because I believe the owner is a great guy and their values as a company fit me well. I like that they focus on the clients and also the nurses as customers. The one issue I do have is that they will have multiple people I have never met or talked to calling me, sometimes two different people call me for the same shift. I like to make relationships with the schedulers so they know me, know where I live and how far I usually will drive, know the places I've found to be a good fit for me etc. I usually am more willing to pick up for the people who called me or emailed me when they started there to say hi, my name is, I'm a _insert position here_ at your agency and I have some hours you may be interested in. One girl even called and asked when I might stop by the office because she liked to meet the nurses and asked that I try and say hi to her while there. I really liked that! There's one girl I rarely pick up for because she's called 100 times asking me to go to the same place I've chosen not to return to, and once or twice she's scheduled me for CNA shifts only to cancel me when she finds out I'm a nurse haha. But really these are all minor annoyances and overall I think the schedulers do a great job even when it gets pretty hectic. I think reaching out and having as personal a relationship as possible with your nurses will help with loyalty. Oh, and call them, don't expect them to call you because if they work for multiple agencies they may not.

I agree that you should have checked the MAR, I have definitely had people forget new orders in report before. You understand how the error was made so you can prevent it in the future. Hopefully the DON will see that this guy's Na was the same at admit and hospital discharge, it's not like he dropped, so as far as the med error having an adverse effect on him... it really didn't, right? Or was their concern just him staying at that level for a whole day? Just be honest and accept responsibility for your part and education and it should be fine.

Thank you for the feedback. My other concern is (and not to start a debate) she is an LPN and I am an RN, so while on the floor working with a supervisor who is an LPN as well, is she under my license? I only ask because some of her judgment is so off at times, but she has worked there longer, so I didn't know if I could possibly end up on the chopping block if something happened... even though she is charge. If she is not under my license I will probably just tell the manager about my concern with this one resident and let her take it from there, it's not really a secret that this nurse acts this way. If she is under my license I may be a little more detailed in my concerns, making sure to mention the low blood sugar. I just really don't want to seem like I'm tattling or trying to get her into trouble, but I don't want to be a part of any huge drama that may occur if this continues either.

I agree, this girl just seems mean... and let me add USELESS as a "mentor". There are a couple younger mean girls like that where I work who think being charge nurse means they're the boss of everyone on the floor. They're still older than me as I am a newer nurse, so as part of the younger crowd I can promise not all new nurses believe they have some superiority over nurses who are experienced with paper charting. I can't wait until she sees you throw those 13 years of experience into action and leave her and her precious COW in the dust :)

Wow! Thanks for all the input. I hadn't checked this in a while. This does give me hope that not every place is like this. It's seriously pretty shady there, but we got a new manager so I spoke with her about this supervisor and she is aware that I am recording all of these occurrences. I also no longer work the shift I had been on so I don't see this supervisor as much, not that the ones on my new shift are any better haha. I do have maternity leave coming up and I don't plan on going back there after. Another nurse who works there is hoping to leave ASAP and plans to write an anonymous letter about the goings on at our facility and I'm debating doing the same... wondering who I should send it to... the BON?

I'm posting this on the general discussion board to get a wide variety of opinions, sorry it's so long!! I work at a residential psych facility and of course care for a number of borderlines. I work with one other nurse who is normally charge. Every member of the staff is expected to follow care plans regarding behaviors. This one nurse in particular (who I happen to like a lot as a person) is very hard to work with. She consistently sides with residents when other staff tries to redirect them and rewards negative behaviors. Residents tend to be very very abusive to staff when she's on and when you try to redirect them they all know to just throw a fit and yell things like "why are you even talking to me? I hate you! I only like Ann!" then of course Ann runs in all protective of the resident and throws me under the bus in front of them. She also touches residents a lot, holds their hands and hugs them and stuff which we're not supposed to do, but I do understand she means well. People really do like Ann but some people don't want to work with her because she allows and often rewards abuse towards the staff. She is desperate to be liked by the residents and won't really let anyone else handle anything. I once grabbed a drink for a resident with a dangerously low blood sugar and warned her we were out of her favorite, the resident said that was fine but the nurse said "no, she doesn't LIKE that kind!" and sent her outside alone to smoke while we waited on more juice to be delivered. I think it's become too important to her to know the residents the best and be the favorite, and good nursing care is getting put second. Last week one resident who manipulates this nurse very well was yelling in the hall and I asked her to stop, she became verbally abusive. I asked her to go into her room for 10 minutes of quiet as her care plan states and she kept screaming. Ann allowed this to continue until the resident was getting out of control and I had to go tell Ann quietly that she needed to back me up. All she did was ask the resident why she was yelling at me, let the resident scream and yell at me some more, and start in on other staff, all ignored by the nurse. UNTIL she decided the best plan of action was to take this borderline out on a special one on one smoke with her (reward?) and disregard that I had asked her more than once to please go into her room. While they were outside there were two assaults, one on staff and one on a resident. She wanted only to "remind" the resident who assaulted staff of appropriate behavior, and allowed the resident who had assaulted another resident to go outside alone to smoke immediately after, which is not what her care plan states. Ann later agreed with the resident that I may not have understood the situation and maybe thought it was an assault when it wasn't, she held this conversation right in front of me. Most of the rest of the night was dominated by the first resident who had to keep upping her behavior to keep the attention on her, until, as borderlines do, she saw we were busy, and proclaimed she was going to kill herself. She was laughing and joking and smiling all night with all the attention she got for that. (I know I sound negative about this resident but I really like her, I don't think any of this would have happened if her care plan had been followed to begin with). The thing that worries me the most is that this resident started proclaiming her love for Ann, which she'll do sometimes jokingly, but she seemed so serious and really was getting kind of romantic about it. I'm starting to wonder if she's confused about the relationship they have and thinks that the nurse dotes on her because she has romantic feelings for her, when really the nurse just dotes on her because staff splitting works exceptionally well on her. I don't want to get Ann into trouble, and it will only get harder to work with her if she thinks I reported something, but this staff splitting is going so far that the unit is unsafe. Should I report it or maybe try and talk to the other nurse? Or am I just wrong altogether and I should just stay out of it?

Sorry this may be the 1000th post on this topic, but I am new to the site (lurk often) and am in a bit of a bind. I recently started a job at a SNF and I really love my residents and work with some great nurses and CNAs. I'm just worried it's not the right kind of experience. The rumor mill is out of control, to the point where one employee has spread tons of rumors and, without investigating, management has written up and fired people based solely on this one woman's word. I was reported twice for totally false occurrences and it ruined my reputation, and now the managers and DON have to "keep an eye on" me which really hurts. They also write people up constantly. If they try to hold one person accountable for something they just pass the buck and so on and so on until they find someone who will just take the blame. Because I'm new I don't want to keep claiming I didn't do anything wrong so I've gotten written up for things other nurses did on other shifts. I also got put on probation for apparently speaking to a supervisor the wrong way and sharing my opinion (funny, you would think my opinion mattered considering I'm the one looking at the patient). My yearly review was based entirely on my "attitude". Nursing assessment skills, documentation, resident care or safety... none of that was even MENTIONED. I sat for a half hour and listened to alternative ways to word things to sound "nicer", the examples were kind of ridiculous to be honest. What happened was we had a very sick resident who was unresponsive, and I said I thought she needed to be sent out. My supervisor said she "gets like this sometimes, she's just playing possum" and said the next shift would deal with it. Well she wasn't, eventually I really pushed (respectfully) for her to be sent out and the doctor agreed. My supervisor was furious. I even got a call from the ED doctor asking me how I could let her get so sick without sending her out, I was so embarrassed. Even though I was right and the resident needed to be hospitalized, I was told I should have just listened to my supervisor and not questioned her, I lost my position and my pay went down and now I'm on probation. She has also told me not to write notes and sweeps a lot of things under the rug, had me write false vitals on resident notes etc. I'm so worried I can't even sleep at night. I'm really in no position to leave my job but I also don't want to get fired or lose my license over some shady happenings at this place. I don't know who to talk to because my supervisor is the problem, and if I go above her to a manager or DON I will get written up for not following the "chain of command", plus she'll just deny it and I'll get written up for complaining about her. You can also get fired for talking to your coworkers about problems you're having. I just don't know who to go to and how to protect myself, or is it a lost cause and should I just leave? Sorry it ended up being so long, thanks to anyone who actually read it all.