Shift Report: Listening, no writing...

mtmkjr, BSN · Sep 28, 2018

Couldn't think of any other way to dis the float nurse?

?????

lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN · Sep 28, 2018

I'm not a writer downer. I will lose the paper halfway through the shift and I can't read my own writing. Yes, I do have a great memory. I can remember that 653's creatinine is 2.47, 657 is getting blood for a hgb of 6.6 and where everyone is from, what the dc plans are, etc. I can't keep a pen to save my life or keep my shoes tied, but I can remember report.

KeepinitrealCCRN · Sep 28, 2018

I also do not write anything down. I felt like when I first started I would and I would miss a lot because I was writing too much so I dropped that and just started listening; the things I forget I can always look up. I only really need to know events that happened overnight and the plan for the patient, everything else I am going to assess or look up myself whether they tell me or not. I work in the ICU and only have 1-2 patients, if I had 6 I think I would need to write some things down to stay organized.

babyNP., APRN · Sep 28, 2018

By the end of my 6 years as a bedside nurse, I rarely wrote anything down. I found that if I wrote it down I never looked at it. Granted, I only had 1-3 patients, but then again some of them were pretty complex, being in an ICU. As a NP I often have anywhere from 10-24 patients. No way I can remember everything and so I write down any highlights that I need to do/follow up on when I get report. Most of my patients get "f/g" though, to be fair (feeder/grower, basically a preemie that is convalescing). I use it more for things like "call this parent" or "follow up on this lab" or "call consult" lol...

calinicumurse · Nov 3, 2018

I'm a fan of writing things down, myself, but I don't hold it against anybody who chooses not to.

But it's when you not only do not write things down, but also don't then thoroughly check the orders that bothers me. What do you mean you didn't know we need a daily head circumference? Or that baby should only PO feed up to 10 mL before dropping the rest NG? Or that we needed a repeat bili at 1430? It's mind boggling the oversight that people get away with...

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Nov 4, 2018

The other evening I gave report to a float pool nurse, first time on our unit.
She just stood there, so I asked if she needed a paper to write down, and she said, "No, I never write anything."
I proceeded to give report on my 6 patients. She just said thank you at the end, no questions. It felt weird, like my report was a waste of time.
I figured there were 3 possibilities:
She has memory super powers...
Everything is documented and she can just look it up...
She just doesn't care and is just there to follow the current orders regardless of whatever has been going on with the patient...
How common is this? I'd love to hear from others who don't write anything down and how you are able to remember all the necessary details.

Actually, not uncommon at all. I work with lots of nurses who take minimal to no notes during report...some nights, I'm one of them too.

If she's got a system that is working for her and she gets the job done, then it doesn't matter if she doesn't write a single thing down or if she transcribes your report word for word. Don't worry about it.

jennylee321 · Nov 4, 2018

I write everything down, but I don't look at my sheet often until 12 hrs later when I'm giving report.