I was on my unit on Tuesday, and it wasn't too bad, but we had some incontinent patients who were a "two person job." We'd clean them up and then they would be dirty again...so we'd clean them up again. I was in a room with an NA and the door was closed. This old, seasoned RN took the TIME to FIND ME, tell me "can you get a blood sugar on the two new patients that came in? oh, and weights and vitals." I told her it would be awhile and then said to me, "well, we need you over there, not over here - tell those other nurses to get off their asses instead of sitting at the nurses station." (my floor is a long hallway and when there are two of us we just split it in half). If it was so important, why don't you just do it yourself? You took the time to find me, so you obviously had enough time to get your own damn blood sugars. and weights. and vital signs. We aren't even supposed to get any of the admission stuff because it is an ADMISSION and that is the RN's responsibility, but they take advantage of us all of the time. Even if the RN is going into the room right away, they'll still delegate the vitals. It just makes me mad because it seems like getting vitals is so "taboo" for a lot of nurses.
This RN didn't do any of her admission paperwork. Nothing. This was at 6:40pm, so yes, close to shift change, but she had time. And those patients came while she was still on the clock, so they were her responsibility. The oncoming night shifters were pretty pissed off about that. I would have been, too.
Last night the tech who I have talked about in my previous posts came on at 11pm, right when I was leaving. She was being all snobby as usual. She was trying to get hired on my roommate's floor but the nurses have the final say because they conduct a staff interview. No one wants to hire her. In fact, they kept asking my roommate if I needed a job instead haha. I wish I could take them up on that offer.
Last night a family member told me "I would like to hold all breathing treatments for the rest of the night. I think his stomach is more of a priority than his breathing." Are you fucking kidding me? Thank goodness this didn't come from an RN/LPN/MD...I would be scared. I just went along with it, because I knew if I tried explaining she wouldn't listen to me.
Oh, and a call light kept going off in a room that was unoccupied. creepy...
In my 1.5 years as a nurse, I have done the vitals on every single one of my patients (unless I couldn't so another RN did). Even when floating to a float where it's a techs responsibility, I have done my vitals. I mean, I guess if I worked on a floor where I had more than 4 patients it would be different, but it's really not that hard. That nurse deserves a smack upside her head.
ReplyDeletegotta love lazy RNs. I've had a couple take advantage of me and my fellow students from time to time in clinicals.
ReplyDeleteI was even in the middle of doing something and a patient came back...the RN was about to go in the room and said "oh hey I need vitals on this patient." you're going to already be in the room, why can't you do just do it? our hospital policy states that you must be in the room for at least 10min asking questions/assessing/etc when a patient comes back from an invasive procedure so she could definitely have gotten vitals done during that time. I notice that nurses get really lazy with answering call lights when they have supports on the floor. -_-
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