Trouble With Lousy Ward Secretaries

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I am hoping for advice in dealing with a lousy ward secretary. Just to give you an idea: She calls from home to the unit to ask if Ibuprofen & Motrin are the same drug...

She: Constantly misses orders, screws up transcribing orders, will not place copies of orders where nursing can find them, since charts are floating all over the place on busy days, makes private phone calls constantly, does not even alphabetize the chart papers filing cabinet, when transcribing an order, takes the entire MAR chart & acts irritated if you need it to give a med.

Well-these are a few of the irritating problems, not to mention a passive/aggressive personality.

Would appreciate any suggestions. The Program Director & DON for the unit have been made aware of problems numerous times & nothing is done.

Thanks in advance, elfmom

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

Well...typically it is the administration that deals with people not doing their job well. So letting them know is a good way to go.

Other than that...I have taken ward secretaries aside with my teaching personality on (which uses humor!), and really let that person know the importance of items done! For instance...the copy of orders. I may start out with a horror story (I am sure we can all come up with one) about not knowing an order in time! And perhaps ask her to find a way to put coping these in her routine so it becomes second nature! Our secretaries copy them as they get them, then we scan them to pharmacy or lab...so the first thing is copy. I swear our unit secretaries do this by habit!

As far as not knowing medications...well, in my opinion duh...she isn't trained in that, and proably a good reason she isn't a medic..LOL! Maybe she is intimidated by medicines, and just has a mental block on meds...it has been known to happen (like me and math! LOL!). Keep a med book near her desk for her, make it hers! Give it to her as a gift to say "we care about you, look these up when we can't help you! It is to help you work better". If it is a gift, it is much harder not to use because of that reason...because if she doesn't..that can be seen as rude. ;)

Private phone calls are a total no no...working together as the RN team for your unit is in order, and writing her up a few times may quell this. yes, a pain I know...but maybe it will only take a few times...

Mistranscribed orders are a major offence, those too need to be written up (heck, they would write me up in a heartbeat if I screwed one up). But make sure you have the whole team doing this...one person always doing the write ups takes time, and makes them look way to mean.

It sounds like she either got horrible instruction when training mixed with bad habits of her own...or she just simply doesn't know that her job is as important to patients as part of the team directly caring for the patient! Or both! Or it could be that everyone has gone over her head to report her and hasn't gotten feedback that she is screwing up? (we all know that one, no news means keep on doing...and most of us do ask for feedback when we feel we made an error so we can help ourselves improve).

Good luck, maybe make her really feel she is part of the team, then she will see herself as a working part of the unit and care to help.

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Thanks for the advice, Triage-will post more when I don't have to run off to work. Elfmom

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your post sounded very familiar, I swear you are talking about the same person,https://allnurses.com/forums/f8/do-you-have-weasel-work-103200.html

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I would talk to HR. Also, nurses need to document the events and then appeal to Director en masse.

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