FYI I have 4 young kids at home and hate working holidays, but I knew when I went into Hospital nursing that hospitals were open 24/7. So if Santa happens to leave our presents on the porch the night before Christmas well so be it. I look at nursing as a family job, my kids get benefits of thier mommy being a nurse and they also have to pay the price sometimes too.
what about? patient care - hiding, not answering call lights, refusing to do the job.
who "wins"? usually i do, sometimes they win the battle, but the war is mine.
do you have friendships among your subordinate staff? what about with other coworkers? yes and yes.
have you ever had an aide tell you she's refusing your direction to do this or that? yes. have you ever called your supervisor for back up? yes. what happened? some have said that is just the nature of the beast and some have called the aide to the carpet.
how did you cope with it? i just explained how they would "follow my orders". once as an lpn, i was charge with a rn working under me, she refused to be in charge. i had an aid who was only working for 4 hours. we needed an aide in the dining room during supper time. well she refused to do this easy task, also had an aide with 2 rib fxs working and i also ask her to help get her patients up. she through a fit and went to the rn and complained. the rn came to me and told me what she said. i confronted the aide about this and when she started her mouth, i told her to clock out and to meet me in the dons office at 0800 the next day. i called the don and told her what transpired. she told me that i did not have to be there for the meeting. well the aide did not show at 0800. when she arrived at 1445 to clock in for her shift, the don was waiting for her at the time clock with her pink ticket. she released her on the spot. nice to have that kind of backing. were you made to feel at fault somehow? they tried.
are you in a long term setting or acute care with quick patient turnover? hospital now, have done different areas.
is your staff pretty stable or do you have a frequent load of new staff who don't really know the job yet? not at the moment, usually are.
I have worked at a number of facilites (both LTC and acute) in which the aides run the units, mgmt knows and does nothing, and nursing complaints fall on deaf ears. This is pretty common in health care.
This has also been a major factor in why I have quit a number of jobs.
Me too. I never understood why until, one time I recieved a pt and with checking AM labs saw scary drop in h/h. Anyway, long story short pt need stat blood. PCT's go to the lab to pick up the blood. I had asked one of the techs to get it, she said no because she had to wash her pts. I told her this is more important than pt washing, but she said "too bad." This was not the first time this or other aides on the floor refused to do something. I had one refuse to draw stat cardiac labs because she had to make a bed.(ROC wanted labs EKG ect for chest pain, and ROC even commented on the lazieness and attitude/unwillingness to help of the aide.)I reported her to the unit manager (waste of time) and she told me that its very hard to find people to be aides. :bowingpurShe said no one wants to do that job. And people going on to be nurses don't count because they move on after a few years. So nothing was done. Needless to say, I moved on too.
who "wins"? usually i do, sometimes they win the battle, but the war is mine.
it doesn't seem like anyone would win in this scenario? dave mac were you ever an aide? it is hard work, and extremely un-appreciated work. if i worked with someone who had the attitude of "the war is mine" i dont know how hard i would work to help them either. i would probably want to run and hide too.
I worked as a CNA before I went to LPN school..... I expect that my residents are taken care of. All too soon you and I will be the person in that bed (or our parents) and I don't know about you..... but I don't want a sore behind from sitting wet for 4 hours!!! I don't have a problem picking up the slack if I am free for a few minutes and the CNA is BUSY..... but when I mentioned to her about doing rounds, she looked at me like I had 2 heads. She is getting paid to take care of someone's family member, and if she wants to sit and do nothing..... well she needs to find a sugardaddy so she can sit home and do nothing. If you are getting paid(no matter what that sum might be,,,,,) you need to be doing what is expected.
I don't know about you, but if I go to McDonalds and buy something off of the $1 menu..... I still expect my food to be hot and fresh.... I paid for it!!!
the thing that gets me is that i LOVE the nurses and aides I work with on nights....on Days, I am constantly changing information given to patients that is wrong, cleaning up rooms that look awful, fixing patients who are obviously uncomfortable in their current position, feeding patients who didn't get fed all day, fixing charting that didn't happen......etc.
When I ask the manager for minor changes...like maybe having report written out by the time we get there for start of shift, OMG heaven forbid that you could have written that at 4, and we'll add the 2-3 people that have shown up since then......nothing happens. We're constantly short, and now have 4....Yup, count em, 4 techs on duty, with the 5th being on light duty at the moment, so she really can't do much of anything.....arrgggh. "Oh, but I've hired more staff" That was told to us 2 months ago, and I have YET to see a single new hire. Makes me really count down the days until I get my RN.....
As an aide soon to be nurse (June), I understand that every facility as their lazy aides, I've worked with a few. However, I personally got very burnt out at my last aide position due to have 20 or more patient per shift (this was in-patient med-surg), with the majority of the nursing staff acting as if I should be able to do vitals, I&O, feed, change, etc on that many pts with no problem. I'm a hard worker, and I have no problem doing my job, but if you have one aide and 20 pts, the RN's need to help out. Further more, the more pts I have, the less likely I'm going to be able to check on pts regularly, increasing risks for falls and other accidents. Yet the nurses I worked with would do anything they could to get out of doing "aide work." Please, don't forget your hard working aides!
As an aide soon to be nurse (June), I understand that every facility as their lazy aides, I've worked with a few. However, I personally got very burnt out at my last aide position due to have 20 or more patient per shift (this was in-patient med-surg), with the majority of the nursing staff acting as if I should be able to do vitals, I&O, feed, change, etc on that many pts with no problem. I'm a hard worker, and I have no problem doing my job, but if you have one aide and 20 pts, the RN's need to help out. Further more, the more pts I have, the less likely I'm going to be able to check on pts regularly, increasing risks for falls and other accidents. Yet the nurses I worked with would do anything they could to get out of doing "aide work." Please, don't forget your hard working aides!
thank you, christine!
i LOVE the aides i work with.
but in order to currently work with the aides we have, a few had to be eliminated, for darned good reason.
i can think of a couple of nurses, who need to be booted, also.
frankly, i find this thread, extremely instigative and is asking for trouble.
there are just as many shabby nurses, as there are aids.
but in order to currently work with the aides we have, a few had to be eliminated, for darned good reason.
i can think of a couple of nurses, who need to be booted, also.
frankly, i find this thread, extremely instigative and is asking for trouble.
there are just as many shabby nurses, as there are aids.
leslie
Leslie, absolutely, nurses and aides alike are human, and I've worked with lazy ones from both classes. If those of us (both nurses and aides) that work hard are assertive about asking for help and even going to management when necessary, we can help to deal with this problem in healthcare.
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I am an LPN at the same clinic I worked at as a technician. I did vital signs, drew blood, did EKGs, stocked rooms, ordered supplies (even from the outside), made appointments, ran errands, and other things I cannot think of. When I came back as a nurse, it seemed as though the situation shifted...the nurses were doing the above mentioned tasks in addition to their own. Now, being an LPN, I did know that I was sort of a 'middle man' in this, but I found myself doing a great deal of the same work I did before I started school, PLUS nursing work. In fact, while on orientation, once, the manager asked me to 'fill in as a tech' and that was when I put my foot down. I told them that I was there to learn how to work as a NURSE, to protect MY license and to learn policy and procedure. Any time wasted doing CNA work is time lost because once I start working independently, I would be fully responsible and accountable of not taking advantage of learning.
Some of them do not draw blood, so, while I am in Coumadin, I am doing fingersticks to obtain the INR. Readings 3 and above require blood drawing. The nurse in Coumadin makes appointments, does teaching, answers the phones, is the middle man between Visiting Nurse services and the physician, and when I need someone to assist by doing lab draws, I get lip. When the CoaguCheck machine is collabrated, that means that we have to do BOTH, fingersticks and blood draws for over 30 patients. But, our manager made sure that the techs take care of the clerical functions, but, the nursing functions are neglected. We pick up the medications, supplies and sometimes, are still making appointments. It is unreal.
The technicians that are good are phenomenal! Everything is done timely, the patients are treated with respect, and so are the nurses. It is just that I am finding that this is fewer and further between, because they do have a great deal more support than we do.
Just the other day, CNA told me "I am not getting ____ up!" I asked "Why not?" her response, "I said I am not getting her up, if you want her up, you get her up!" So I did, along with an CNA I pulled from a different unit. I wrote her up....she refused to sign the write up and then they moved her moved to a different hall. I think she should of received at least a three day suspension...but what the heck.......just leaves room for another CNA to do the same. Moving her to a different hall does not teach her anything. They made this like a personal issue verses what it actually was which was gross insobordination.
racing-mom4, BSN, RN
1,446 Posts
FYI I have 4 young kids at home and hate working holidays, but I knew when I went into Hospital nursing that hospitals were open 24/7. So if Santa happens to leave our presents on the porch the night before Christmas well so be it. I look at nursing as a family job, my kids get benefits of thier mommy being a nurse and they also have to pay the price sometimes too.