I got my first job as a new grad in the beginning of December (so im coming up on 6 months). bsn is in progress with about 12-18 more months. I work in a hospital on a telemetry/med surg floor.
We are horribly understaffed, we are also ICU overflow and have critical pts sometimes and the ratio goes 6:1 more often than not. I have felt very unsafe with my assignment many times.
Almost a month ago i was injured by a combative patient (due to lack of staff he was supposed to have 1-on-1 supervision which was discontinued before it should have been). I was sent to the ER, treated, followed up with employee health and they sent me to one of their office docs to get cleared. Three visits later i finally got cleared (they were concerned i wasnt healing properly) finally cleared me, back to work, light duty (chest injury). Understaffed, 6 pts - 2 critical, 3 confused. All alarmed, one gets up, i call for help and of course none shows up. The pt is halfway to bathroom and falls risk. I try to steady him and get him sitting down and of course he goes down. He leaned my way and i had the opportunity to catch him - felt like my whole chest wall ripped (just the already damaged muscle pulling more i guess) super sharp pain and i DROP the pt. Handle the situation, notify appropriate people, an hour later im in severe pain still and nursing supervisor gets pissed when i tell her i need to go to the ER again (couldnt catch my breath, tons of chest pressure and pulse ox of 77%). Had to give report to other nurses and walk myself down, nesrly passing out at this point, and was treated again in ER. also, as im in pain charting the fall, supervisor is coaching me to "leave out" parts where i dropped him/couldnt hold.him up. I was in pain and getting lightheaded so i did as told and now im very worried.
then employee health sets up another dr appt with a new guy (other doc was away). He walks in, says my CXR was clear so hes clearing me to go back in 1 day no restrictions. I told him my concerns and he dismissed them, interrupting me. He also marked me off as non-work-related injury (theyre treating the re-injury/exacerbation as a new injury) and that my symptoms and the new injury didnt happen at work. He also didnt assess me - at all. Just sat and talked AT me for a total of 2 mins. No eye contact. I left in tears. Called employee health, emailed HR and my manager. Told my manager everything and said im not coming in tomorrow or ill hurt myself again or another pt possibly. Unless i can be promised light duty (which due to staffing i cant). She said i will be penalized for calling out. Employee health said its coming out of my PTO since it was ruled non work related, and Hr wrote back that they cant do a thing because its a medical situation.
I am so upset and done with this place. Dozens of nurses have quit in the past year with management changes and now i see why
I need advice - do i stick it out til december (1 year) or leave after 6 months? Im not sure how much luck ill have without the BSN being complete...
Im not positive of my end goal but im thinking outpatient, maybe ambulatory surgery or pre/post op, endoscopy something like that. Also considering school nurse cert after BSN is done. I think i can get into somewhere outpt without the complete BSN but would that be stupid? Do i really need that full year - will having 6 months tele unit then afterwards ambulatory surgery or something like that look bad and screw me over later?
