You are part of the problem with healthcare today if...

PherbRN · Mar 24, 2010

Amen to that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well written.

healer65 · Mar 24, 2010

LuvRN

I loved your response but I would also like to added a bit more to this from the bedside.

You are part of the problem with healthcare today if . . . . . you are at the bedside and . . .

---you rarely teach your patients and families about their disease processes

---you rarely update your patients and families about their plan of care.

--- families and patients who call out and ask the above or have concerns are all pain in the a***es

---you rarely read your physician progress notes

---your unit looks more like a farm then a hospital because of all the sh*t laying around

---you spend more time in a 12 hour shift, on the computer planning your next vacation, shopping, facebooking or texting.

--- you are clueless on what is going on with your patient after a 12 hour shift and give crappy reports and leave half of your work undone.

---you have no idea what the discharge plan is

---you'd love to be doing something else but the money and job security in nursing is just to good

---if you come to work every day with a crappy negative attitude and no solutions

---it takes more then four rings to pick up the call light or a phone or to turn off a telemetry monitor when their are 5 nurse in the station.

---if you don't take any responsiblity or pride for you unit, your education, your career

--- if you have an FMLA for sunny days, or days you just don't feel up to coming in

maybe it's time to stop pointing the finger and look at some of the real issues.

PherbRN · Mar 24, 2010

Why are good nurses attacking and bullying one another? We need to get to the bottom of this now before it's too late. What is the cause of our aggression?

Is it the work environment? In the nursing profession, we are told that we must adapt to change and to evolve into seasoned professionals.

It would be great if someone would find a solution to this global problem.

Davegemtb · Mar 25, 2010

Though funny & truthful to a point: I Just Wanna Know...Can't we all just get along ? well can't we ?

Team work people TEAM WORK

Davegemtb · Mar 25, 2010

BTW I am a 9 year EMT and now a nursing student...been trolling this board for almost a year...This hit a nearve with me so hence my first post! I've seen the good - The Bad - And The Ugly. Have been studing business and am learning about government regualations and insurance issues. IMHO The OP has touched on a huge issue

Mars · Mar 25, 2010

I understand satire is to make its point clear, and yet, sometimes it becomes divisive. I wear business causual and work directly with patients. I work holidays and weekends sometimes, and no I am not currently doing the dressing changes. However, I do patient assessment, education, injury prevention, public health initiatives to prevent community exposures, etc... We need to think broadly to accept those who in larger roles are "doing good for the patient" and work together to eliminate the wasteful redundant practices.

sdwmb · Mar 25, 2010

i don't mean to interupt...... :chair: ........ but why does the blue thermometer taste better?

hahaha because unlike the red the blue one doesn't taste like crap (literally)

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 25, 2010

i thought the original post was hilarious, and i have to admit i was really surprised at how it seemed to hit a nerve. it's a vent, people. sometimes, we use this forum for venting. sometimes we even vent about each other. as far as i'm concerned, that's much better than backstabbing your actually colleagues.

if there weren't a good bit of truth in it, i don't think the management types would get so bent out of shape about a vent that was meant to be humorous. we all know the types of managers and gucci nurses described in the original post, and if we admit it, some of us have even been those nurses. as far as the management types . . . i have to admit that when i've been to a committee meeting to develop our new charting software, and every suggestion i make gets shot down with "we're not trying to make the nurse's job any easier!" i can see why someone would vent about management.

my sister is one of those rns with a 9-5 job, a covered parking place, a six figure salary, high heels and designer suits. she spends much of her time doing "research" about how to cut licensed personnel and replace them with unlicensed staff. she totally lacks a sense of humor, too, but i digress. i will never forget how, in the wake of some of her "research", a third of the rns in her facility were replaced with unlicensed personnel. she was quite self-righteous about how those nurses who were fired were "dead wood who aren't contributing to the organization." until the remaining nurses went on strike and all of the gucci nurses had to put on scrubs and actually take care of patients. she was singing a very different tune when she was actually taking care of patients and putting up with some of the garbage she, as management had forced down the throats of the bedside nurses. unfortunately, it didn't take her long to forget again once she was back in her corner office.

i understand that middle management is caught between upper management and the bedside staff, and i understand how little power they actually have. i have to respect my manager, though, because when she forces this excretory matter down our esophoguses, she prefaces it with "i know you all think this is b.s., and i don't disagree. but we have to do this because . . . " and then explains a bit of the politics that resulted in the latest stupid management trick. we don't have to like it, but we love our manager, so we do it for her. as much as we can. because we know that when we need her to, she'll have our backs. too few managers are like that, and perhaps that's why we see the venting about management. if some of the computer geeks who are programming our software so that nurses have to chart hourly blood sugars in four separate places in three separate programs would actually follow a nurse around for a few hours and see how little time we have for such nonsense, perhaps they could figure out how to program some nurse friendly -- or friendlier -- software. but upper management doesn't think it's important for anyone to understand the burden their duplicate charting places on bedside staff, and they for sure don't think it's part of their mandate to make nurses jobs any less difficult. that's bound to cause some hard feelings.

allnurses Guide · Mar 25, 2010

All the managers/educators here sound very dedicated, and rational. That makes me wonder who are the people who conceive of, brainstorm, and approve such a large quantity of BS?

Where do these things come from?

I think nurses are actually going backward in their effort to be seen as professionals, especially when compared to doctors. The vast majority of great ideas management imposes rely on the assumption that nurses are untrustworthy, slacking , surly children.

Syhuggins · Mar 25, 2010

Although posted to be funny the issues listed don't even begin to touch the base of what the true problems within the health care systerm are today !!!!!

And blaming those with jobs other than that of direct patient care is hardly fair or really even funny. Every discipline within the nursing arena, including management, education, infection control, IT, Quality and so... ALL bring an extremely important piece to patient care & patient safety! It's too bad that it continues to go unrecognized or appreciated by those who are so quick to eat their young (and management if they could)! And we wonder why there is a nursing shortage!

eriksoln, BSN, RN · Mar 25, 2010

I hope the reps with endless trinkets in their car are not really considered "part of the problem". I like those trinkets. I've developed a skill for sitting through 10 minute presentations and acting interested just to get the food and pens. Its the little things that make life nice.

I see the point to some of the stuff said about suits. Hey, I work at a suburban hospital that could double in size and still not be called "big". Yet we have TEN............10.........VPs. That just boggles my mind. You could barely justify one......certainly not two, but TEN? So, I sometimes feel that way too.

But, I'll add this too. When the really bad snow storms hit and the electric went out, our CEO, the HEAD CHEESE, the BIG NACHO.........was in the dietary dept. (more than half of them did not make it into work, there was a total of four girls in the dept for the whole hospital) helping to figure out how to put something together to make meals for the patients..............HELPED MAKE THE MENU, HELPED PUT TRAYS TOGETHER AND THEN PASSED TRAYS.

Funny, I guess it is a trickle down thing. I was a travel nurse before, so I've seen a lot of good and a lot of bad managers/suits/administrators. The manager I currently work under is by far one of the best I've ever been under. You'll never hear me accusing her of having it easy. Guess when you have a CEO with the personality he has, helping dietary.......it trickles down to the other "suits".

I think the "suits" are much like us nurses in that there are good ones and bad ones. There are many nurses that I WOULD NEVER want representing me or acting as the poster child for our profession. Admin. are the same, some are a detriment, others will make you say "wow, wish I could be more like that".

ElizabethARRN · Mar 25, 2010

While I tried to find the humor in this, I couldn't. I am an RN with over 20 years of clinical experience who now works in Performance Improvement/Safety. While I may not touch a patient and I wear street clothes, this does not minimize the importance of what I do. I find this attitude pervasive though in nursing, no one takes the time to appreciate that we are all part of a team working together for the good of the patient. It's easy to point fingers, but I say don't judge unless you actually know what jobs your coworkers do. I do my best every day to help provide patients and staff with the safest environment possible. I have put in years at the bedside, and thoroughly resent the assumption that because I now have a different role, that I'm not contributing to patient care. You have no idea.