NurseDimples

I am a night nurse that works alone overnight. I like my job. I'm good at it. After months of being promised additional staff w/o result, I'm quitting. Quitting for a job that pays less money. WHY? Because you don't have any control over your life. If something comes up, you can't participate because you don't have coverage. I blame management for being short sighted. I'm exhausted from trying to explain the rational. When they have to fill in the nights I'm not there, maybe then they will understand. You can't own my whole life for my salary. I'm not for sale, for rent yes, but not for sale.

Y.E.S.

No. I was a CNA for two weeks. Hated it. Gave me no indication of how I would come to love the job. Both jobs you work hard but I never worked as hard in my life as I did those two weeks as a CNA. CNA's do the most backbreaking bedside care with no respect and paltry pay. As an RN you work hard but at least you are compensated and respected as a professional.

I would have to agree. Keeping a large psych unit well staffed is difficult to do without the help of PRN nurses. For to long I have seen prn nurses hold on to PRN jobs to keep their foot in the door or work one or two shifts every 3 months. That's draining on the staff and the payroll since overtime is used to cover those spots. Use it or loose it I say. Or at the very least pitch in when a manager is asking for help. She may be more prone to look the other way when she is staffed well.

The hospital I work in now was smoke free years ago. We had special vents in Smoke Rooms and the staff who smoked would take them on a smoke break every few hours as long as their behavior was appropriate. Come break time, it always was. I could control a unit of unruly patients with a clipbord. You act out, no smoke break. Don't want to take your medication, no smoke break. Refused to follow rules, no smoke break. Needless to say patients were much more compliant and followed the rules if thieir smoke break was at risk. Now, since we don't give smoke breaks, I can't say we out and out have more "violence". What I will say is patients become manic or irritable and need more PRN's. As a result, we just substituting Ativan and Haldol for Nicotine. I don't smoke, but I don't judge. It "feels" like a violation of patient rights to me.