Night shift nurse here!
I just wanted some advice and all of your opinions on this. I feel like giving report is a HUGE emotional hurdle sometimes when I'm coming off shift. Some of the nurses I give report to want to know EVERY MINUTE DETAIL about the patient including non relevant stuff (how many pregnancies did they have in the 1980's, what is the exact name of chemo they get five years ago, what's their favorite Beatles song), basically things they can easily LOOK UP IN THE CHART. I work in oncology FYI and in my opinion what matters in report is diagnosis, pertinent PMHx, mobility, code status, vitals frequency and how they've looked, mental/cardiac/respiratory status, skin issues, relevant meds, IV access and general plan for hospitalization and DC. THAT'S IT! If they're hemodynamically stable, medicated for pain and otherwise comfortable move on with your day and stop asking me stupid questions!!!
Now, if that isn't irritating enough these nurses that haggle me for every tiny detail not only berate and bully the night shift nurses for not memorizing the last 500 doctors notes.. OH NO, when we get report from them at night and ask them EXTREMELY important questions (Did the ultrasound show a clot?, what is the rate of the PCA?, what was the last hemoglobin?, how are they getting out of bed?), they brush it off or say they didn't have time to check!!! AND it seems like once management leaves at 3 PM all responsibilities get thrown out the window. I come on to do bedside report and these patients are screaming in pain from not getting pain meds since noon, actively vomiting or have had an IV beeping for the last hour.
Look, I understand day shift is more busy and maybe they don't have time to read every detail of a note, but when it comes to daily assessment and events of the day, the day shift nurse needs to be completely on his/her game! ESPECIALLY with high risk drugs given. Ugh! The fact that these same nurses who harass me for not knowing about the tonsillectomy a patient had in 1996 are unaware of extremely important current medical events is seriously messed up.
Ok, end rant. So what I'm asking this community is what should I do about this? A lot of my other night shift coworkers feel the same way and we've talked to management before and they haven't done anything. It's two nurses in particular here and they have seniority. I've been working about two years so I feel like a jerk telling them what to do but since they're compromising patient safety I feel the need to do something. Should I go to HR? The union? What are my resources?
