Suggested Research

[brazuca]

Hello everyone,

Its been awhile since I've posted in this forum. I graduated nursing school just last May and between that and 18 weeks of Intensive care residency program I've been finally on my own for a couple of months. WIth this said, I have found throughout these last few months why so many new graduates leave the profession early on or atleast bedside nursing. I am not 20 or 22... Im 28 years old and have worked endless different jobs, and one thing I can say, no other job has been so demanding and stressful. OUr patient load is unreasonable and I'm sorry if i offend any of you, but nurses are to blame for the current load we now face. If in the past nurses didnt speed up to an unreasonable speed in order to achieve all his/ her duties within the alotted time frame, they would have no choice but to decrease or maintain patient load, but not increase as they have. If nurses showed they were unable to acheive safe patient care, hospitals would have to review their nurse to patient ratio and maintain accredited and compliant to federal regulations.

I reached this conclusions not only based on my own observations, but every single nurse who went to school with me repeatedly attest that they literally dont have the time to use the restroom (i would imagine many of you agree).

I would love to have the time of day to stop and perform an unbiased research composed of chronologically timing to the second each task "demanded of us" per patient. I mean everything!! How long to assess lung, cardio, integumentary,.. etc, accuschecks, draw labs, chart, turn, pull meds from pyxis, I mean every single bit, and ofcourse all interventions or assessments that can be grouped together do so to minimize time in order to leave no openings for excuses. Iwork in the ICU, and my patient load is only 2 patient, put you cant imagine how many things i have to do and chart on an hourly basis. If I were to truly conform to policy and procedure I can sincerely say my hypothesis of how much time I have and how much i trully need would prove mathamatically impossible.

So what would this proof? For one thing... that was is expected is humanly impossible and that nurses end up charting tasks that they did not perform in order to comply to the necessary tasks bestowed to them. Would this accomplish anything? I dont know? But it would be nice to proof by evidenced based practice that no human can accomplish so many tasks, assignmennts, duties, interventions, etc at a given amount of time.

I would like any opionion you all might have in the subject at hand.

Thanks

Frankie

[LiverpoolJane]

I share your frustrations, I have experience from a different point of view. I manage a busy renal / diabetes ward and all the nursing and medical staff regularly stay behind on unpaid overtime so as to finish what they need to do. Other members of the MDT however who usually work 9 - 5 have no pressure on them to see patients referred to them. I'm thinking of when we refer to occupational therapy, speech therapy, social workers etc. They can use the excuse of short staffed due to sickness or mat leave for not seeing patients for days sometimes weeks after referral. Even when pts are referred for different invetigations like CT, MRI etc it seems like no sense of urgency - if the dept cannot do them all before their shift finishes - well so what - they will do it tomorrow! Nurses however no matter what staff or pt problems they encounter are expected to slog themselves half to death - stay behind after their shift finished to get through the work load.

I don't know what the answer is as the staff pt ratio in the UK on med surg wards is worse than the US but what I find really odd is in the UK ITU is usualy staffed 1:1.

[adria37]

I would like to see this also but if you really wanted to complete this research it would be very difficult due to obtaining inter-rater reliability. I bet my bladder is as big as a basketball.