luvmybabes

I am tired. I have been in the NICU since 2002. I have seen management come and go. They usually don't last long. The Supervisor we have now wiggled her way into this position. I didn't get along with her as a staff nurse and now she is supervisor. I have been looking for a new position elsewhere in the system. Since I have been in the NICU since 2002, they tell me, I am not qualified for the positions I have applied for. I have done some of these jobs in the past, but its been too long. I earned my BSN last year and have applied for a Supervisor and Lead position. They say I'm not qualified, even though I run a nonprofit where I create policies, deal with volunteer issues, and run the program. I applied for the Lead job on 9/16/15 and received a letter that they received my application and would contact me if I met the qualifications for the job. I still haven't received anything. I am tired and frustrated. Policy change in our unit with out an email telling us to view the policy. We work at 150% productivity. My assignment yesterday was not appropriate, but there is not staff to come in and help. I was suppose to work from 11am to 7pm yesterday, I punched our at 830pm with no break to eat. Thay seem to think this is OK. I never sat down except to chart after giving report. It's not safe and I am tired. I have been with this company since 1998, I am ready to give my 3 week notice without a job lined up. I am willing to go anywhere, flipping burgers even sounds good at this point. McDonalds was my favorite job back when my kids were young. They treated you like a person not a machine. You felt appreciated when you left. I left yesterday feeling defeated. I told the next nurse this baby needed a followup blood sugar at 11pm because the IV had been stopped. Our policy was Q12 hours X's 2 when we stop an IV. Well apparently that changed and we were never told. Do I have to look up every policy on everything I do before I do it to make sure nothing has changed? DONE!

Thanks for the input. We only start morphine if they have 3 scores above 8 or 2 scores above 12. We have new nurses that I feel don't understand the scoring system.

I work in a 20 bed NICU and 25% of our babies suffer from NAS. How does your facility handle scoring these babies? We use the Finnegan scoring system and recently they decided they want us to check our score with a second RN if the score is 8 or >. I have been doing this since 2002 and i am insulted that my judgement is being questioned. Just wondering how other facilities handle this situation.

Absolutely not, 12 weeks for level 2 NICU orientation, work with level 2 babies for a while, then 12 weeks orientation into level 3 Nicu rning.

I just returned to work after a FMLA of 4.5 months. I am on restricted hours, 6 hours per day for 2 weeks. I was to work Fri, Sat, and Sun. Fri and Sat were going to be refresher days. I needed to update on our Epic system and all the changes in education and equipment that happened while I was off. We are not to do education at home or when on FMLA. So, I sit down on Fri and start printing off what I need to work on. 30 minutes into my refreshing, my supervisor says I have to float to LDRP. I am a NICU nurse. We don't do moms. I did go and helped with discharges, babies and other tasky items. I did so without arguing as I was gone and it was my turn to float. So I get to work for day 2 of refreshing to the unit, didn't get day one to do this, and I was told I needed to be a sitter in 3 ICU. There was a combative patient with a ICP drain, central line, Fentynal drip urinary cath and so on. I am told to not let him pull out any of his equipment. Before I finish getting report, I am told this patient was made a one on one with his nurse. So on to the next patient. This patient is laying sideways in the bed, moaning in the bed, hand all over his body. He has an ICP drain, rectal tube, cental line, urinary cath and NO fentynal drip. I am to write down hourly information and make sure he doesn't pull anything out. This patient is trying to sit up, swinging at me when I try to move his hands away from all this equipment. I call my charge nurse in the NICU and tell her this is not an appropriate assignment for a NICU nurse. SO they were going to move the NICU, unit secretary into that room and me into the room she was sitting. I went to change assignments again and again called the NICU Charge nurse and tell her this is not appropriate for our unit secretary either. Now I am in charge of the little old Alzheimer patient that gets confused and needs to be observed. The house supervisor then comes into the room. The NICU unit secretary is to stay with the little old lady, a CNA from 3 med/surg is going to watch the patient trying to pull everything out and I am to CNA on 3 med/surg. Just a little background info. I have a 4 level spinal fusion and have permanent weight lifting restrictions of 35 pounds. I can't get patients up, walk them or roll them. So the 2 CNA's that are on 3 med/surg are upset and rolling their eyes at me. I am a NICU nurse since 2002. I have had 1 year of adult hospital nursing in 1997. I feel it is unsafe to put a nurse with very little experience in adult care into this situation. How would these nurses feel if they had to float to the NICU. They would refuse. We needed help with a withdrawal baby, just someone to rock him for many hours as when you put him down, he would cry continually. Everyone of the adult world staff refused to do this. We never see them when we are busy. We would not treat them the way we are treated when we float. How would you feel as a patient if you knew a NICU nurse was helping with your cares? I need input on how other hospitals handle this and if anyone knows of any research articles that will help me with this problem. Thanks