Leaderboard

I always act as though I am being recorded. I watch what I say and what I do, because you never know what a patient will try to accuse you of.

@Hoosier_RN said, in another thread, "I no longer socialize with coworkers. I'm friendly, but professional, and need that separation to keep myself fresh. I've found that if I hang out with work chums, all we talk about is work, and this just adds to the feelings of 28 years that are not the same as my feelings when I began years ago. I surround myself with people who share my other interests", which set me to thinking. There's a common ground that we Nurses feel with our compadres, having been in the front trenches, relying upon one another. We feel especially close to those who have the same high standards as do we. "All we talk about is work" is often the chain that binds our relationship. The chain, the bond of our relationship, our work, defines our relationship. Often times, when that bond is broken, so goes the relationship. Hoosier's action of loosening that bond a bit can be seen as a two edged sword. We need the camaraderie, but we also need to divert our attention and pursue other interests. We need to possess something else which is important to us in order to refresh ourselves so that we may return to the workaday world. My closest coworker/friends at Wrongway Regional Medical Center in geriatric psych were my work wife Eleanor and my brother in arms Rooty Payne, psych tech. In response to Hoosier's post, I said, "I've had some of the best, closest relationships with people I've worked with, only to have them fade away once that chain is broken. Even though one or the other of us tries to keep the friendship momentum going, it never lasts. I figure one of the reasons is because I'm such a loner, keep to myself, and am attracted to others who choose a similar lifestyle." Eleanor and Rooty are like me, in that they are fulfilled within their own lives and do not need a relationship with me in order to carry on. I haven't communicated with Eleanor, except though Rooty, since I was "Fired & Retired" from Wrongway nearly a year ago, and I'm okay with that. I'm sure Eleanor is, also. Rooty and I communicate through emails and texts every so often, but we discuss little to nothing about Wrongway. Our conversations mainly focus on our interests, our respective spouses, and the fun we have chiding each other. The reasons why I believe Rooty and my relationship has continued is due to his moves to stay in contact, our fondness for each other, but also because of my little Sister's death last Spring. Rooty asked if there was anything that he could do, and I replied, "Yeah- just keep in contact". Rooty has done just that. It's nice to know that Rooty and my common ground continues and may or may not be enhanced at any given point. But what is important is the fact that we once shared a common ground of nursing.

40 years ago, the first thing out of my newly graduated mouth was "I'm a nurse!". Over the years, that has changed: I am a: Christian, wife (well widow now), mom, grandmother, sister, aunt, nurse, teacher, dog lover (have 3 at the moment), Scout leader, crocheter, hiker, traveler ..... So, who are you? How do you define yourself? Where is nurse in that list? Have fun!

Nothing! I am relaxing with coffee, French toast in the oven. ?? This is MY two minutes!!

Just to say - you are not a loser. And there is NO demotion moving to tele/stepdown. That's kinda like a 'hit below the belt' to those nurses. ALL jobs are important and specialties unto themselves. You're pregnant. It's taking a toll on you. Your health comes first.

I worked at a residential free standing drug an alcohol rehab facility for a while. Typically if there is a doubt to the patient's medical or psychiatric stability prior to admission or at the time of admission we would send them for medical clearance at the ER, so MOST of the time your patients are pretty stable that said, due to the nature of detox you will have some pretty sick patients. We had around 40 patients, a mix of detox and rehab, vital signs were q2-4hrs around the clock, most of the time we staffed with 2 nurses and 2 techs but there were quite of few nights of 1 nurse and 1-2 techs. It was busy but doable. Behavioral emergencies did happen but were pretty rare because our policy was to administratively discharge if a patient became physically threatening and police would be called. Medical emergencies of course went 911. In my opinion, I wouldn't be comfortable being the only person in the building in your situation, too many things could go south on you and it's just not worth the risk in my opinion.

That is a good example of patching holes on the worn out denim, when you need a new pair. If the underlying cause of lack of morale is understaffing and high turnover, it would be an insult to any intelligent RN to offer a shout out corner as remedy. I remember having the burden of getting 3 patients in the ICU once when one of the patients qualified to be 1:1 on more than 1 factor (fresh Impella/balloon pump and CRRT w citrate) additionally, the pt. was on an insulin infusion and 3 vasopressors/inotropes, heparin gtt etc). The powers that be saw it fit to give me a psych patient and a post-CABG day 2 pt that needed to get lines D/C'd and transfer. Torturous task, because I "could handle it". I expressed my concern about patient safety, but to no avail. The tone-deaf, unencumbered, and in no uncertain terms, imbecilic manager bought pizza as solace. Talk about lack of leadership. How about you put on scrubs and get your hands dirty rather than patrolling the unit, combing through irrelevant details like who's doing bedside report and who did not write their names on the white board. The pizza gesture irritated all fibers of my anatomy. Work me like a mule then feed me swine. Ugh!

So this being my 3rd day as the ADON, I haven't actually seen my boss only in passing. After finding out about the added job roles and on call expectations yesterday I went in today set to speak with her about it. When I saw her this morning, I asked if I could talk to her briefly, and she said she would be down to the office. About 45 min later, she appears, but not to talk to me, it was to bring another new employee her preceptor for the day. I thought she would say to me then, lets go talk, but she didn't, she began to walk away... so I walked after her and I asked her again if she had a few minutes to talk to me. She actually told me NO... and I quickly said, I'll just be a couple minutes I promise. At this point, I'm getting more & more irritated because this woman is supposed to be training me, has already told me on day 1 "oh feel free to come to me anytime you have a question", but yet doesn't have a few minutes to talk to me? So fast forward-- I basically tell her that I have some concerns with the job, being that I didn't find out that I would be covering quality control/compliance, or infection control until my first day during general orientation. And she said, and you have a problem with that why? I told her that I was concerned about the quality of my work, being overwhelmed with 3 job titles/job duties. And she said "well that's why we we're going to go slow with your training". ***- I couldn't even get you in here for 3 minutes, and you plan on taking your time to train me?! HAHA When I addressed the on call expectation, I told her that it was not made clear that I would need to be available to come into the facility on the nights I was on call. She didn't really have an answer. She basically said, so what are you saying? Long story, she had me go speak to HR, who is a total *** btw and asked me, well what did you expect? She told me that I should have expected & assumed that being on call meant that I may need to come into the facility. I told her, that I have been on call many times for other agencies, and they were very clear up front whether the call required me to leave my home or if it were just telephone triage. And I felt that they needed to make that more clear during the interview process. She said she needed to contact her boss, and actually had me leave the building so she could make the phone call. It's 20 degrees here in NY and snowing! But she asked me to go wait outside! Anyway...long story. I ended up leaving, she said she would call me when her boss got back to her.

Similar to not using paragraphs... It wasn't user friendly. More and more readers hated them because they were getting overused. We were seeing members using LARGE fonts, others using very small sizes, bright colors on everything. The more people used them the more wanted to do the same. It got out of hand. This doesn't work so well on smaller devices. We needed a balance that would work for all our readers. If your vision is not as strong as it use to be we want to make sure you can read. If you are colorblind we want to make sure you can read. If you are on a mobile device we want to make sure you can read. Currently, our mobile usage is at 70%. I think we made the right decision. ?? I'm an artist and I can tell you these decisions are not easy. We have to weigh the CONS and the PROS on everything ... to do what's best for the community.

I never defined myself as a nurse. I only told people who asked first, what so you do etc. I am a Christian, wife, mother and grandmother, also sister, niece and Aunt, hiker (used to backpack but at the end of the day hotels are now preferred to dirt and tents), painter, photographer, and I like to watch crime dramas, and as soon as Covid has left us I will travel again (which I love). Also, like Broadway shows and Phantom! Mostly I consider myself a sojourner here on earth until He calls me home (oh happy day!) Oh, and a retired nurse. This is probably true for most of us humans It is never too late!