Is it just me, or do some unit secretaries feel that the call light is for the nursing staff to answer? I don't understand this mentality at all. If all the RN's and CNA's are running around and busy in the rooms, why can't the secretary help us out and answer the call light! Let imagine a patient is choking or is about to soil themselves, in this type of emergency TIME IS OF THE ESSENSE!
Just the other night, When i was changing a dressing, I heard the call bell going off for maybe 5 minutes. Where were the other RN's and CNA's you ask? Doing vital signs, baths, assisting with turning, med passing, suctioning, and other essential patient care routines on a 40-bed med/surg/tele unit.
Is it so hard to move an inch and pick up the call light, Mrs. Secretary? "Nurses Station, How Can I Help You"?
I don't mind people not answering. What I mind is when a secretary who won't leave the nurses station asks "Can I help you?" when the proper response is "Can I get someone else to help you?" And nothing quite sets my teeth on edge so much as when, after ignoring what the patient says, they say "I'll send someone right in," which you hear while you're already on your way. And after you've gotten the original page and gone and done whatever you had to do, you get a redundant page from the secretary bearing some imperious comment of their own. Answer the bell? NO. Paddle your own canoe and. Just. Shut. Up.
Ours usually answer all the call lights, UNLESS they wander away from the desk to do . ..whatever. And they seem to do that a lot. bUT, I guess it would be hard to sit there for 12 straight hours and do what they do.
I'd like this space, however, to pay homeage to a couple of our secretaries, who are like watching GRACE in action. They are highly proficient at what they do and I watch them in awe. They, like the charge nurse, can make or break my day. Usually, the good ones make it a great day. :loveya:
However, we have another who is hostile AND incompetent. She sits in stark contrast to our other secretaries who are friends and extremly competent. She cannot keep up and she seems to operate with a prima donna attitude, especially when she's stressed. Somehow, only SHE is allowed to be nasty and smart mouthed when she's stressed. The rest of us lowly nurses have to keep it zipped. There are days I'd like to thrash her. :angryfire
anonymurse
979 Posts
I don't mind people not answering. What I mind is when a secretary who won't leave the nurses station asks "Can I help you?" when the proper response is "Can I get someone else to help you?" And nothing quite sets my teeth on edge so much as when, after ignoring what the patient says, they say "I'll send someone right in," which you hear while you're already on your way. And after you've gotten the original page and gone and done whatever you had to do, you get a redundant page from the secretary bearing some imperious comment of their own. Answer the bell? NO. Paddle your own canoe and. Just. Shut. Up.