kimwarren72

All I can say is THANK YOU to those defending LTC. I laughed at the one person who thinks that once a year management feeds people and answers call lights for surveyors. I am not sure where that is but as a Director of Nursing all the nursing staff, nurse managers and myself, feed people, answer call lights, and take people to the bathroom every single day we work. Maybe I run a different ship because I worked the floor for many years in the nursing home and many times if the DON does not participate in care or make nurse managers do so then they did not previously work the floor. At least that is what I have found in my experience. Every area of nursing has its good and bad points but I do not appreciate people knocking long term care if they have no or very little experience in it.

Many years ago I worked in a nursing home as an LPN and returned to school to become an RN for the sole purpose of working in OB. I did not want to do anything else and had the rest of my career as a nurse wrapped around that notion. Well sure enough I finished RN school and landed a job in OB. It was the most traumatizing time of my career. I wanted so badly to learn and constantly asked questions and volunteered to take care of the hardest patients. The patients were not the problem. The problem was the doctors and nurses. I had never been treated so badly in my life and was constantly called stupid for asking anything. And all this was during my "orientation". Needless to say I lasted three months and returned to skilled nursing to eventually become the Director of Nursing I am today. Like you I left that hospital every day and cried the entire 45 minute drive home and wanted to quit nursing. The point is if you are that miserable do what ever you have to do to secure employment elsewhere, turn in a notice and leave. As I found out it is not worth giving up what you went to school for nor is it worth going through the stress you are right now. You will thank yourself in the end. Take that from experience.

Calm down sister. I am Director of Nursing in a skilled nursing facility in Florida and although the states are different and some laws may be most are still the same. If you counted the narcotics and gave report to a licensed nurse employed at the facility then there is nothing anyone can do to you. I'm not sure I would fight the termination because it does not sound like your DON has common sense but if you really want to remain employed there I would report the occurrence to the corporate office. What you immediately need to do is prepare a factual statement of the events and sign and date it. Do not rely on your memory later on if it comes to that. In your statement you need to state who you counted with and gave report to and the conversation that took place including the nurse's willingness to take the keys. Hope this helps and do not let a bad DON make you think your nursing career is over.

I saw this exact same scenario in nursing school many years ago. Fortunately I was the student who rarely ever spoke, always listened contently in class, and had no interaction outside of class with any of my classmates. Only myself and one other student graduated out of a class of 16. Moral of the story is do not insert yourself into the situation and it will be almost impossible to be involved. I would much rather be a "loner" as I was described than waste thousands of dollars on a program I could not graduate from.