write ups

In the hospital I work in I think a lot of people play the 'write up' game, but the nurse manager hardly ever passes along the write ups. Many of them are silly little nit-picky cr#p like "Didn't clear numbers on IV pump" that really doesn't hurt the patient. I've written myself up for a couple of med-errors that didn't hurt the patient (Thank God!), but I felt that I should own up to it and document it. I wonder if people that I work with know that I've done that and realize that write ups really don't drive me crazy, so they don't write me up? I don't know. We're not 'in trouble' if we get write ups ocasionally, so I use it as a learning experience, or dismiss it if it's totally petty and stupid. But if we had a different nurse manager who went nuts with reprimands, I'd start looking for a job somewhere else! Life's too short for that cr%p IMHO.

I'll rant right along with you. I got written up in my nursing program for asking too many questions (huh?) Instead of talking to me, they give me a page-long memo. "They want us to put it all in writing," my clinical instructor said. If I didn't care about graduating on time, I would have asked whatever happened to talking to an individual first? I'd like to hear from nurses what this is all about. I come from 20+ years in another field, where we tried to talk things out first, and this perflexes me, too.

Something seems to be very wrong with the concept of "writing you up" because you ask too many questions. I mean, nursing school is where a person learns right? How are you going to learn if you "don't" ask questions. I don't think I would be comfortable with that situation at all. I would have written a response to that write up, explaining that I was trying to acquire as much info as I could. After all, you're the one paying for the education. Right?

I got a write up when I worked at the group home. Totally bogus accusation--I worked the floor there for 5 years and knew client rights, ect. Basically a new staff, who is a major suck up and will step on anyone to make herself look good to the bosses, went to management with a claim about something that happened, and blew it way out of proportion. Had a client not wanting to take some meds that were very important for her at the time. After asking her twice, I made the comment that to floor staff that she really ought to take the meds, she needed them. It was reported I said she HAS to take them and had staff hold her arms back so I could try to shove them in her mouth. Um, yeah. Management knew better, so it wasn't filed as an abuse thing (there was no abuse anyways), they were just supposed to do some education on the behavior programs. Funny, b/c I had asked if she had one for meds that night and was told no. And the best part of it? That floor staff got the monthly award--for HONESTY. Go figure.

I did write out a big long statement to be filed with it, about what really happened, and made copies for myself too.