Tech as manager

This is my constant frustration as well. We are an even smaller outfit than yours and I really feel this is not a nurse friendly environment. A rad tech for a manager means as good a manager as he tries to be he just does not "get it". We have a "dotted line" to our CNO but no nursing administration structure. Doctors do not communicate with us directly but do it through the Rad Techs. This too caused a "wrong procedure" at our hospital. A renal vein sampling (rennin) ended up having to be done again due to the doctor not communicating with the nurse who thought it was as adrenal vein sampling (aldosterone/cortisol). I have even had doctors try to give orders through the techs. This is pretty frustrating. I love the hours though. We don't have nearly the number of nurses you do though. We should have 3 full time and 2 PRN nurses to be fully staffed but never do so you can imagine the call situation is less than desirable

Thank you so much Dianah! We have great techs, but you're right about the need to define our role as IR RNs. I printed the ARIN position statement and plan to present it to our Director of Radiology. Hopefully with the weight of Joint Commission behind it as stated in the document, it will make our dept leaders sit up and listen. Again, thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Rebecca

We also have a Tech Manager and we don't like it either but we are treated like step children and what we think should happen seldom does. I feel your pain. We too have someone who is supposed to advocate for us in nursing but it doesn't happen. She is willing to listen to us but there is no change. I have been in Radiology Nursing for 25 years and we have made some improvement but not near enough.

Wow! As unfortunate as this is, I am heartened to hear other IR nurses have the same issues and frustrations with non-nursing management. Recently I almost lost it when our tech Manager refused to let there be a nurse in on the interviews for a nursing position. He was offended when I pushed and stated that he knows how to hire a good employee and is doesn't matter which position. As everyone stated, unless you have a nursing background, you just "don't get it."

PS--There are only 2 full time nurses in our department. We have 1 IR suite and also do sedation/monitoring in CT, US, and MRI and have a ton of odd duties. Since my coworker left, I am now on call every day until the new nurse is trained(which should be at least a month away). My sanity is not worth $3/hr.

Update--we have posted a Nurse Supervisor position. Anybody want to move to Mississippi??

I believe JC requires the evaluator to have appropriate credentials and competency in order to evaluate another person's work. Check with HR or your Quality director.

Oh you're correct classicdame . But there's this weird disconnect in our department about what the nurses need. It's this "oh we've always done it this way" kind of a thing. It's quite frustrating. How much more convincing do you need other than "it's required by TJC"??!?