Respect....or the lack thereof...(RANT ALERT!)

[Ilovegiraffes]

OK, maybe I'm just getting cranky in my old age, but I've become quite annoyed at the disrespectful actions of a few.

My office has 2 doors, and at times staff uses it as a "short cut" - but, that's a practice I've been trying to stop. First, the privacy issue: students shouldn't have to be assessed in front of staff bustling in & out . Sometimes there are contagiously ill kids, awaiting pick up. BUT the latest kicker was this:

A guardian (grandparent) brought in meds for his grandsons. He is disabled & walks with the aid of a rolling walker. He & I were standing face to face, in MY office when a teacher pushed through between us! As if that weren't bad enough, she came back through us, running out of MY office in the other direction!

That was my last straw. I placed a notice on the extraneous door stating "please use other door" and I keep it closed at all times now. Of course, this means I have to ignore the pounding on the closed door, presumably by illiterates....

Now today, a child (sweet kid but frequent flyer) came straight in from the bus, saying she threw up on the bus, but "swallowed it". No odor of vomit. color good - so I told her to go to class, take off her coat & get settled in for the day.

She wasn't gone 15 seconds before her teacher marched her back in & demanded I take her temp. I let the teacher know I had sent the kid to class and the teacher interrupted & said to take her temp & if there's no fever, to send her to class.

Naturally she was afrebrile. Later in the day, I actually spoke up and let the teacher know (privately) that I didn't appreciate her questioning my nursing judgement, especially in front of the child. She looked at me blankly and said, "butshe said you didn't take her temp!"

Well, a temporal thermometer isn't all that reliable straight off the bus on a sub-zero day, but the bottom line is that if i felt it medically necessary to obtain her temp ASAP, I would've done so. Besides, this kid has "unseen emesis" on a regular basis.

I told the teacher that insisting that I check the kid's temp after I already sent her to class is a lot like a teacher correcting a child's paperwork, only to have the child go to another classroom teacher & have THEM check it, because the first teacher might be wrong.

Whew! Glad there's only 13.5 more weeks of school left....but who (besides ME? ) is counting....

[stephaniehowe]

56 days left for me=)

[fetch, BSN, RN]

I feel ya! Have one teacher who likes to call parents for "sick" kids without telling me, because she used to be an MA and "that's practically a nurse."

(Wrote out a whole other paragraph but deleted it -- but it felt **** good to type it up!)

65 days, plus 5 "half" days, to go . . .

[SchoolRNAmy]

Oh... I can't even imagine the rage.... lol. I'm ready to scream over here too. We just had February break (of course, it was too short), and I am counting the days til summer (67 more days!!!!!!!)

[bsyrn, ASN, RN]

I feel your pain :)

[raidermom]

I understand 58 days left for me!!!

[abc123RN]

May 30th CANNOT get here soon enough!!! Please Mr Weatherman NO more snow!!

[Supernrse01, BSN]

So sorry you are dealing with that. Disrespect is one thing that drives me crazy. I always say, I don't come into your classroom telling you how to teach, so I don't expect you to come into my clinic telling me how to be a nurse.

I hope your days get better!

58 days left for me!!

[amygarside]

That's fine. I guess we all have to face those kind of persons.

[Nurse ABC]

Oh my gosh I feel your pain. I also have two doors to my office the teachers and principal use as a shortcut too!! They will literally pass through and say "sorry" or "you don't mind, do you?" without even giving me time to respond! Each teacher thinks they only come through a couple times a day which is no big deal to them but when you multiply that by 30 some staff members and each trip in and out, sometimes two or three times a day, that's one heck of a lot of distractions a day!! I also have teachers who will stand near my desk and look at everything I'm working on waiting to talk to someone in the main office. They will also barge through as I'm talking to a parent or kid as well. I'm thinking, how do you think this is ok? I'm also asked to cover the phones and door all the time and even had to stay late or miss lunch at times to do it. I haven't said too much because I don't want to seem like a witch but the more I give the more they take. I guess I'm going to have to put my foot down. It's just a shame I'm going to be the one that doesn't seem like a team player for complaining about being taken advantage!

[RNlove17]

Yep, I have the same complaints (although not the door thing, that would never fly here. My health aide is a tough cookie lol which is good cuz I can be a softy.) But there is a definate lack of respect for nursing judgement. They have NO CLUE what nursing school and then practicing as a nurse is like or what we actually do. At least that's what I tell myself!

[fetch, BSN, RN]

I have to vent as well - one teacher has begun consistently questioning everything I do. I'm sorry that a child with NO SYMPTOMS isn't getting ice from me, but literally every child wants ice so that they can suck on it in class and then throw it in the toilet. I'm sorry that I'm not sending a child home for a cough that you say is constant, but only happens once in 15 minutes in my clinic and doesn't have a fever.

But now she's just blatantly going behind my back and sending children home when she wants to, and getting ice from the cafeteria when I don't give it to her kids. I don't know what to do, I am so tired of being undermined.