Ive been terminated for the first time in my life and without warning or prior counseling.
Ill try to keep this as short as possible.
I am an RN with 10 years long-term care experience. I accepted my 1st DON position with a very rural community owned skilled facility with a census of 20 residents 3 months ago. A very challenging experience with very little guidance from the administrator or the ADON, i basically winged it . Everything was so disorganized, wasnt sure of my role, b/c the ADON would take over and just do them herself without taking the time to explain things, and since Im new didnt know the right questions to ask, so I basically read everthing I could get my hands on, eventually I developed my own routine whether or not is right everyone seemed pleased and the adm.would tell me I was doing such a great job census was picking up, risk assessments that were 1-2 years overdue were caught up, I developed a strong rapport with families, the medical director, the residents, and the staff knew they could come to me., when a problem would come up with CNAs ( which as often) I would promptly follow up.
The more I learned the more mistakes I was finding that the ADON was making e.g orders 2 weeks old that were not properly flagged and put back in the chart and critical lab values that were not called in but then i overheard her blame the charge nurse to the adm.
Scheduling was delegated to her (ADON) by the administrator when I started. She was doing the Dec. schedule right after thanksgiving. I scheduled myself off for X-mas., she calls me at home on x-mas eve and asked " are you going to work tomorrow?" I replied, No, I wasnt planning on it she proceeded to tell me there was no one to cover the floor, and said well Ill call you back. She never called me back.
Monday morning I arrive at work, make my rounds, get report, soon I hear " Can you come into my office?" there sits the ADON along with the Adm and I hear " We are qustioning your commitment to the facility, he proceeds to tell me that I need to work the floor when asked and that he was told that I refused to come in, I look over and the ADON is not saying a word, looking at the floor. Its my word against hers. then he stated I wasnt cut out to be a DON b/c I lose control to easy. he was referring to an incident that occured 2 weeks ago when a resident fell we all went running to the room except the ADM of course, we found her lying in a pool of blood, huge scalp lac. ,obvious fx arm . I instructed the charge nurse to call 911, while I held pressure along with other c0-workers, I felt so bad for her i made the mistake of allowing myself to show emotion by shedding a tear and telling this poor woman i was sorry, well this compassion i shown has turned into me losing control over the situation. I was told he would have to let me go. Im sorry this is so long winded but I am still in shock. Any thoughs on this would be greatly appreciated and thanks for reading.:angryfire
