So I need some advice on damage control here. I've been a nurse for 2 years all of which have been on a telemetry/cardiac step down unit in a non-profit hospital in a poor metropolitan area. It's not huge hospital (500 beds), but it is big enough for CABGs/Caths/Cardio-Pulm stuff. My floor has about 16 to 20 nurses on the schedule for both nights and days and a 5 to 1 ratio on both nights and days. I've worked both shifts for a year minimum and can tell you that nights are a piece of cake compaired to days. Recently, like in the last 3 weeks, we lost our awesome manager, the best floor supervisor ever, a great night charge, and like 4 other decent-great nurses. Now there are only like 3 of us on day shift that have worked here more than a year....actually there are only 3 of us who have been nurses for more than a year and only 1 who has been a nurse for more than 5. I guess what I'm saying is that the circumstances are poopy and the reason we lost so many to begin with was because the circustances have been poopy since I've started there.
Anyhow I get a patient from the ER that comes in with chest pain. She's aggrivated on arrival because "no one has told me why I have to be admitted. I've had chest pain before, if the tests are negative they should let me go!" Well I end up going and getting her chart and pulling my computer in the room to do a little PR so that maybe she'll be satisfied and I can take care of my actually sick patients. I go over her labs and what they mean, the EKG, the doctors orders and why he probably wrote them, AND I told her about the fact that I didn't know when the doctor would be in but he would be there sometime before I left. She seemed satisfied and happy so I left and didn't go to her room for a while. I finally went to check on her and she was in a frenzy about her insurance and worried that if we didn't get precertification that she'd have to pay for her admission. Well I'm not all that great with insurance and I can understand her worry so I take the time (45 + minutes) to call registration and then the preceritfication department to make sure that they have the right insurance card and that they actually called and got approval. I went back to tell the pt and she was on the phone. I started to talk and she told me, "Don't be rude I'll talk to you when I'm off the phone." I bit my tounge and waited and then told her what I'd done. She did not seem completely satisfied because whe wanted the precertification department to call her and verify what they had done to her. At that point I was starting to get tired of her so I just told her again it was taken care of and I'd be back. About 1600 I notice that the MD hasn't made it by. I haven't been to her room but since I noticed I decide to call the doctors office to make sure they know about the consult because eventhough the ER and my secretary both say the consult has be done I just felt the need to make sure. Well low and behold the patient had called the MD's office 6 times since 10am and had been told repeatedly that the doctor was at another hospital but he knew she was waiting to be seen and that he would not finish his evening until he saw her. So I went to tell the patient that I'd also called and checked up on the situation and low and behold the butt pimple was on the phone with her MD's office AGAIN telling them that no one had explained to her why she was here, what was going on, or doing ANYTHING to care for her. Something in me just snapped. I'd spent so much time trying to make sure she had what she needed and for her to go and say something like that just sent me through the roof. Thus I ended up yelling at her and telling her point blank that she was a waste of my time and that I would no longer be caring for her. I then marched up to my charge nurse and handed her the chart and told her that I was done with her and I refused to take care of her anymore. My charge RN precedes to go into the patient's room to reconsile the issue by joking with the patient about how I need to go get a psych evaluation.:sstrs:
I feel bad. I feel bad about the fact that I don't feel bad that I yelled at a patient...and I'm ****** at my charge RN. While I know that she needed to reconsile the issue I don't feel that it was appropriate to do it by makeing a joke of my mental health. Furthermore I feel even more aggrivated because I had put in my notice for June 15th but then agreed (after lots of begging from this particular charge RN and the director of my floor) to stay, at least part time, until October to help them out because they are so short.
I don't even want to step foot into the place tomorrow.
While I know that she needed to reconsile the issue I don't feel that it was appropriate to do it by makeing a joke of my mental health. Furthermore I feel even more aggrivated because I had put in my notice for June 15th but then agreed (after lots of begging from this particular charge RN and the director of my floor) to stay, at least part time, until October to help them out because they are so short.
