What would you change about Nursing to make it better?

[RNman09]

After reading many posts here on AllNurses, I read about nurses eating their young, no respect, not enough teamwork, lazyness, not enough clinical time, Nursing shortage (yeah right),etc....So I'm asking what would you change about Nursing to make it better? You can vent, post nothing or write something maybe your idea can help another RN come up with a solution to a problem.

[justiceforjoy]

Perception of the LPN's role. Yes, it has changed a LOT the past x-years in BC.

[Straydandelion]

Mandated max acuity a nurse is expected to take along with max overtime and "breaks" for meals being enforced. Pay scale on par with management and workers at commercial places. The pay is fine for new nurses but after a few years is far behind others. Retirement benefits.

[zuzi]

COMMUNICATION and SENSE OF ACCOUNTABILITY in nursing from bottom - up and from up to bottom, colateral communication, intra and interfacilities communication, COMMUNICATION, this is what mees up nursing life... people lost the natural nomal way to communicate one with each other and because of that was growup diverted anomic deviant methods of communication and that is awfull.... for patinets and finally for us!

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

Better staffing and less cattiness.

[SoundofMusic]

What Debz said about the silly customer service approach and boundaries, and the bit about timeclocks. As a nurse w/ a former career, I am appalled at how unprofessionally nurses are treated, especially those of us with the BSN. We have a bachelors degree equal to or more difficult to attain than any college grad, yet we're treated like union factory workers.

How about get rid, also, of at least half of the management coordinator positions and just return these nurses to the floor to help out, or use the cost savings to hire more techs!! We will have at least 4-5 of them at any given hectic understaffed moment, sitting in the back w/ their lattes gossping about us behind their closed doors while we're having patients go nuts on us. Or, lately WE get sent home early due to overstaffing, yet they still manage to stay on.

Just treat us professionally -- with autonomy. Get rid of the crazy paperwork, and mandate that doctors communicate with us more clearly -- in writing and verbally. I don't get how we are there with their patients for over 12 hours a day, yet they can't find the time to chat w/ us for 30 seconds about the plan of care.

I, for one, would also like to be able to transfer out of my unit after my obligation is up without hassle. I'd like to get around to various units quickly and find my niche. Our management, however, seems to want to keep us on until eternity and never let us transfer out. I dont' want to be pigeonholed into one type of nursing, when I'm totally able to learn another area. It's why I went into nursing -- for the variety!

[Riseupandnurse]

Management nurses should have to do one shift every two weeks. It would stop some of this BS like rounding and bar coding. Get the JCAHO off everyone's backs. Get real. If we can't use a restraint and we can't get sitters, what do you THINK is going to happen with the fall rate? If the hospitals want to run a hotel/restaurant, let them hire hostesses, maids and servers like the hotels do. And most of all, nurses need to stick together. Stop biting and stabbing each other and demand decent care for our patients. It should be clear by now that nobody else cares enough to do it.

[leslie :-D]

i would mandate all of admin to be licensed as nurses.

would not have to be current, but needs experience, so they can r/t the impossible demands/expectations of the bedside nurse.

everything else would fall into place.

leslie

[Scrubby]

In my speciality area of nursing I would have more educators available to help new staff. This would provide more support to people learning OR nursing and make life easier for those of us who have to run an operating theatre with barely enough time available educating. Currently new staff are just thrown in the deep end because for 19 theatres we have two educators who are NEVER on the floor as they also have to educate medical students as well.

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

I would like to see a change in the way health care workers are instructed by administration in how we must communicate with our patients, ( I mean our clients) with scripted phrases and a customer service attitude that sometimes feels demeaning and make pts. feel like we are there to serve them and their visitors,and cater to their needs that are not related to their immediate care. I realize that healthcare is a business and hospitals are struggling to survive, but a line has to be drawn between nursing care and catering to the non-medical needs of pts and their annoying, demanding and sometimes crazy family members.

There are ways to sound extremely professional and still be able to place limits on people. I do it all the time and very rarely have issues with people.

My expectations are that when you have a professional relationship with people (patient-nurses-family) everyone has an appropriate role to play. Proper scripting without sounding like a dork can be done.

Oh, and try using words like collaborative, conjunction, ignominious behavior, proclivity, etc., and you will see how much better they behave......

[Dave the nurse]

Good questtion.

[newohiorn, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

As others have stated:

Make nursing care billable--not lumped in with room charge.

Cut the customer service crap--these are patients--not customers (doesn't mean we shouldn't treat people right but unreasonable demands by patients and families should not be honored in the name of customer service--we need boundaries!).

Reduce the ridiculous rules and paperwork that slow me down and keep me from providing bedside care, i.e. 7-page clinical pathways, hourly check charting, crap like writing "read back" on telephone orders from physicians--I find this utterly ridiculous because it doesn't prove that I read it back--just means I wrote "read back". Soon I suppose I'll have to have someone witness me reading it back!

[Dave the nurse]

Man I wanta tell ya I got some real painnnnn! in the ass patients!

When John and Jane Doe come to my hospital I have never seen a gareater assortment of humane baggage of every kind and fashion. Things that would make you rech your guts out. Some times I say to myself Where the **** did this come from?

Then I step back look at the whole picture. Formulating my plan of care so that I can best meet the needs of my patient and his family....Thier whole family,what ever that my be.