katlpn6

Your right....initially they were reported by someone else but I was called by the board of health and asked to give my side of it. So no....I did not do the the actual reporting. I'm sorry if I missled you, I did not intend to. And to clear it up, I was only there two weeks. Parents can be very verbal about things and I guess some of them noticed. I have been a pediatric nurse for 10 years and the nurse who was orienting me has only been a nurse for 6 months. She didn't have to teach me how to be a nurse, just teach me about the office protocol which in my opinion has nothing to do with clinical practice. Especially when what she was telling me was incorrect.

I appreciate your input but let me assure you I am not a trouble maker. To avoid making my thread novel length I cut to the chase with quite a bit of the details. One of the things that happened with this nurse is that I asked her where they keep the 1" needles and her reply to me was "we don't use those here" to which I asked her "do you mind telling me why" her reply was "we just don't" I told her I preferr to have them on hand and would she mind ordering them. I am a professional and I tried everything I could to fit in there, both of the nurses there gave me a hard time every chance they could. I bit my lip most of the time and figured I had to earn my wings and took it all in stride and continued to care for pt the way I was tought but never forced my beliefs on either of them. Parents began to question why their children cried less when I gave them immunizations as compared to them. It's my feeling that they were threatened by me and worked together to get me fired.

As I said in my orriginal thread, this practice had children ranging in age from birth to 18 years old. I agree with you that in some instances a 5/8 inch needle is appropriate, that's what nursing judgement is for. My point was that they did not have any 1" needles at all in the office therefore making it immpossible to give an IM injection to an older pt with more adepose tissue. The nurses there had no problems at all with the way they were doing things, that was the scary part.

Although I am not making excuses for her behavior, lets face it, CNA's get paid very little money to do very hard work. I can understand how an "attitude" can develope in an underpaid overworked CNA. Add into that the age factor. You didn't mention the age of this CNA but in the rehab center where I do perdiem all the CNA's that I have working with me are very young. It seems that the younger people these days don't have the maturity needed to do any work with the public much less as a personal care giver to a fragile elderly person. It seems like your CNA has gotten full of herself and needs a wake up call. Certainly it is not your place to give it to her but you are certainly well within your rights as her direct supervisor to let her know that her behaviour is not acceptable. I'm sure you can find it in you to tell her in an nonthreatening diplomatic way that it is important for everyone to work together for the common good of the residents you all are caring for. Rimind her why she is there in the first place, to care for people who cannot care for themselvs.

I have actually reported them to to board of health and they have begun an investigation. Her remark to me when I questioned her technique was " I've been doing it for years and have never had a problem." but I can tell you that I had more phone call's and kids come in with abcesses and infections at the injection site in the two weeks I was there then I did in the whole ten years I have been practicing.

When she gives immunizations such as DTaP and say Hep B....she tapes the syringes together to give two injections at the same time. This makes it so two injections are given less than a 1/2 inch apart...clearly inappropriate landmarks.

Hello, my name is Katherine. I have been an LPN for 10 years. I am an experienced clinition and have won awards for my excellence in clinical practice. I worked in an office for 10 years which gave me a vast amount of experience, from family practice,internal medicine,pre-op teaching,pediatric nursing to urgent care. I take pride in my skills and am dedicated to doing it right for the benefit of my patient. I loved my job but felt it was time for a change so I took a new job in a pediatric office, this office served patients from birth to 18 years old. When I discovered the nurses in this office were giving IM injections with a 5/8" needle I requested that they order some 1" needles, which they did. When the nurse who was orienting me told me that she "tapes syringes together" to give immunizations I almost fell over! I told her that was not clinically appropriate and I would not be doing that. I worked there for two weeks and was brought into the office managers office after work one evening and told that it wasn't working out and they would have to let me go. When I asked why she told me it was because I was too set in my ways and obviously was not willing to do things their way. As difficult as this has been for me, I feel proud that I stood my ground and refused to do it wrong to just keep my job. From what I understand the department of health got word of this and has since gone in to correct the situation. Unfortunately it was at the expence of my job but at least I know the children are being properly immunized because of my sacrifice. Now I'm off to the trenches again to find a job that appreciates a skilled and dedicated nurse!