I am currently on assignment at an unnamed hospital in LA in the ER and from day 1 it has been an absolute disaster! My first day I walked into a code minutes after it had been called overhead and no one was doing anything, no compressions, no ventilation, no meds, nothing! So I started shouting orders and ran the code myself. Then my second week here I looked at the assignment board and noticed I had a new patient - I went to the room and he was ashen gray, diaphoretic, with chest pain and shortness of breath. He was not on a monitor, no ECG was done, no 02 - and he came to me from triage where a nurse had already seen him... Then the cherry on top of it all was Monday night. I had a patient come to my room in SVT - he was diaphoretic and had been in SVT for 24 hours or more. We gave cardizem and adenocard and got him back to sinus after about 15 minutes and dozens of PVCs. Then I walked out to mount my rhythm strips and a staff nurse walked to the nurses station asking where the crash cart was so she could check (it was 7p shift change.) I told her it was in my room still on my patient and she said "okay" then walked away. A minute later I hear screaming from my room - I go check and long story short she "checked" the defib at 150 joules WHILE IT WAS ON MY PATIENT and then lied about it...
Now.. the first several incidents scared me but this one absolutely terrified me. Had he gone into a lethal rhythm, I'm sure she would have tried to blame it on me and who do you think they'd believe - their union member or a traveler? So now I'm not sure what to do. I've followed all protocol with my agency by reporting everything, having the appropriate meetings, etc, and they will let me out of the contract without too much hassel because of the "unsafe working conditions" but should I leave because of this? If I do leave, should I stay with my company (who has been pretty much terrible up until this point also) or go with another company? I'm from a level 2 trauma and the hospital I'm at isn't trauma at all... and I started traveling to learn. Another company I'm talking to says that they have openings at UCLA and Childrens which are both Level 1 and the company I'm with says they feel that my current assignment is "too overwhelming" for me. Well.. I'm not overwhelmed by the assignment, I'm overwhelmed by the stupidity... :/ Help??
I am currently doing an assignment in a teaching hospital in Central IL, this is the worst hospital ever and I have been traveling for 5years. I did a 6month stint at a 25bed hospital and it was the absolute best in terms of patient care. So the size of the hospital has nothing to do with what goes on inside that hospital
Worldtravelgirl
32 Posts
Glee, got it, but can't do anything
It says you don't want to be contacted?