Too much for too long
I work to live, not live to work. Having said that, I don't just show up and do my time. My job is too important to treat it that way. What I do affects people too profoundly to be nonchalant in its execution. Have I saved lives? Undoubtedly. Have I inadvertently taken it? Possibly, but thankfully, I am unaware. A pharmacist once told me statistics about how many people one will kill in a year through human error. Horrifying. When you consider how many people's hands you are in when you are admitted to the hospital, and the fact that each is imperfect just as you are, the whole process is a leap of faith of phenomenal proportions.
To say that my job is stressful is a slight understatement. A unit nurse cares for one or two critically ill people, a floor nurse is responsible for the well being of 5-6 patients, possibly more. The stresses of your personal life has to be left at the door, because you must become focused on your charges issues without distractions. You must know all of the medical history of each, including each med they take, what each is for, if any interact with the others negatively, if they need to be taken on an empty stomach, or if food needs to be there to protect the stomach lining. You must know their diet, if they are diabetic, if they need to be on a fluid restriction. You must know of any allergies or intolerances to any medications. You must know about preparations for any procedures, minor or major, and prevent an extension of their hospital stay as a result of human error, or infection that is hospital acquired. This all is just the bare minimum. On top of all this, family dynamics, the patient's mental status, education level, motivation to learn and participate in their own recovery, and their own stress level comes into play.
Enough? OK, now you are a nurse who is in charge of several nurses who are in charge of 5-6 patients each, each with a different educational experience, different experience levels, different temperments, different critical thinking skills. The charge nurse needs to know which nurses need supervision, which nurses have good time management skills, which nurses are stronger or weaker with certain diagnoses, the integrity of each, and the acuity level of the assignment that they were given.
A charge nurse is also responsible for administrative duties that seem to change and multiply every day. Each department creating checklists believes that their department is the most important there is, and that each patient will surely die if their checklist is not completed every shift, and in a timely manner.Many of these checklists had a valid purpose at the time of their creation, but since have just become busy work. Micromanagement has to be the plan of the day when human's lives are at stake, so none of the checklists die a natural death.When they become outdated, they are simply replaced with a new and improved checklist, twice as long and infinitely more tedious than the previous one.
The implementation of said checklist requires all involved in its creation and execution to attend a meeting. Said meeting is scheduled at the most inconvenient time of day possible for all attendees, is mandatory , and is always right in the middle of most attendees time off. The content of the meeting is chronicalled in a handout given to each attendee, and then read, word for word to the attendees,with pictures also illustrated on an overhead projector, at which time all are asked for their input. The time spent drawing everyone back to the subject at hand varies, depending upon the skill of the chairperson.
If a hospital is up for an accreditation survey, every policy, procedure and checklist is up for review to make sure it meets the criteria of said accreditation organization. This organization also had its very important purpose at its inception. Now, it seems to spend its time creating more and more checklists and policies to justify its existence. This survey occurs every few years, and is attended with the trepidation worthy of a zombie apocalypse. For months ahead of time, things are tweaked, cleaned, quizzed and shuffled. It matters not that things have mostly been chugging along like a finely tuned watch. It needs to be FIXED. The policies and procedures that were just fine at the last accreditation survey are suddenly not meeting the criteria of said surveyors, and no one was informed of this until 2 weeks before the upcoming one.More meetings are required. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
This summer, 31 years of my life will have been devoted to a profession that I consider to be what God intended for me. While I am actively practicing it, I give it my full devotion, my undivided attention, and do what I can to guide my coworkers to do the same. I tweak and revise and clean for the expected apocalypse, because it is a necessary (?) evil. Stress needs a break. The changes that have occurred recently in the health care field have created a stress level that sings like the tone created by running a wet finger on the rim of a crystal goblet. All health care workers are familiar with the causative effect of pressure ulcers on skin. Pressure, with no relief creates a cavity which creates further complications to the entire organism. Relief, if it is of too short a duration, is ineffective.
This pressure, if applied for an extensive period of time, destroys the organism piece by piece. Burn out has been, is, and always will be a complication of the stress on the health care professional. It has often been said that nursing eats its young, pushing them until they give up before they have had a chance to mature in the profession.
I have always been a fighter of things that require expenditure of time towards a goal that makes no sense. All I ask is that I am given enough information to help me understand the purpose of any change. "Because I said so" doesn't cut it. I am pretty smart, I am college educated, and I have a wealth of experiences to pull from. I am well versed in being part of the solution, rather than just dumping a problem at your feet and walking away. Let me contribute in the way I do it best. Lay it out for me, let me contemplate it for awhile, weigh it out, and I will get back to you. You can then incorporate my ideas, or reject them. Don't give me a lot of busy work. Let me function at the level of my expertise . And DON'T decide I am not as effective as those sitting around a table while you read a handout to them, because I choose to take my downtime as I deserve. Everyone handles stress in their own way. Taking a complete break from it when I can is how I handle mine.
Nursing eats its young? It eats its old, as well.
To say that my job is stressful is a slight understatement. A unit nurse cares for one or two critically ill people, a floor nurse is responsible for the well being of 5-6 patients, possibly more. The stresses of your personal life has to be left at the door, because you must become focused on your charges issues without distractions. You must know all of the medical history of each, including each med they take, what each is for, if any interact with the others negatively, if they need to be taken on an empty stomach, or if food needs to be there to protect the stomach lining. You must know their diet, if they are diabetic, if they need to be on a fluid restriction. You must know of any allergies or intolerances to any medications. You must know about preparations for any procedures, minor or major, and prevent an extension of their hospital stay as a result of human error, or infection that is hospital acquired. This all is just the bare minimum. On top of all this, family dynamics, the patient's mental status, education level, motivation to learn and participate in their own recovery, and their own stress level comes into play.
Enough? OK, now you are a nurse who is in charge of several nurses who are in charge of 5-6 patients each, each with a different educational experience, different experience levels, different temperments, different critical thinking skills. The charge nurse needs to know which nurses need supervision, which nurses have good time management skills, which nurses are stronger or weaker with certain diagnoses, the integrity of each, and the acuity level of the assignment that they were given.
A charge nurse is also responsible for administrative duties that seem to change and multiply every day. Each department creating checklists believes that their department is the most important there is, and that each patient will surely die if their checklist is not completed every shift, and in a timely manner.Many of these checklists had a valid purpose at the time of their creation, but since have just become busy work. Micromanagement has to be the plan of the day when human's lives are at stake, so none of the checklists die a natural death.When they become outdated, they are simply replaced with a new and improved checklist, twice as long and infinitely more tedious than the previous one.
The implementation of said checklist requires all involved in its creation and execution to attend a meeting. Said meeting is scheduled at the most inconvenient time of day possible for all attendees, is mandatory , and is always right in the middle of most attendees time off. The content of the meeting is chronicalled in a handout given to each attendee, and then read, word for word to the attendees,with pictures also illustrated on an overhead projector, at which time all are asked for their input. The time spent drawing everyone back to the subject at hand varies, depending upon the skill of the chairperson.
If a hospital is up for an accreditation survey, every policy, procedure and checklist is up for review to make sure it meets the criteria of said accreditation organization. This organization also had its very important purpose at its inception. Now, it seems to spend its time creating more and more checklists and policies to justify its existence. This survey occurs every few years, and is attended with the trepidation worthy of a zombie apocalypse. For months ahead of time, things are tweaked, cleaned, quizzed and shuffled. It matters not that things have mostly been chugging along like a finely tuned watch. It needs to be FIXED. The policies and procedures that were just fine at the last accreditation survey are suddenly not meeting the criteria of said surveyors, and no one was informed of this until 2 weeks before the upcoming one.More meetings are required. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
This summer, 31 years of my life will have been devoted to a profession that I consider to be what God intended for me. While I am actively practicing it, I give it my full devotion, my undivided attention, and do what I can to guide my coworkers to do the same. I tweak and revise and clean for the expected apocalypse, because it is a necessary (?) evil. Stress needs a break. The changes that have occurred recently in the health care field have created a stress level that sings like the tone created by running a wet finger on the rim of a crystal goblet. All health care workers are familiar with the causative effect of pressure ulcers on skin. Pressure, with no relief creates a cavity which creates further complications to the entire organism. Relief, if it is of too short a duration, is ineffective.
This pressure, if applied for an extensive period of time, destroys the organism piece by piece. Burn out has been, is, and always will be a complication of the stress on the health care professional. It has often been said that nursing eats its young, pushing them until they give up before they have had a chance to mature in the profession.
I have always been a fighter of things that require expenditure of time towards a goal that makes no sense. All I ask is that I am given enough information to help me understand the purpose of any change. "Because I said so" doesn't cut it. I am pretty smart, I am college educated, and I have a wealth of experiences to pull from. I am well versed in being part of the solution, rather than just dumping a problem at your feet and walking away. Let me contribute in the way I do it best. Lay it out for me, let me contemplate it for awhile, weigh it out, and I will get back to you. You can then incorporate my ideas, or reject them. Don't give me a lot of busy work. Let me function at the level of my expertise . And DON'T decide I am not as effective as those sitting around a table while you read a handout to them, because I choose to take my downtime as I deserve. Everyone handles stress in their own way. Taking a complete break from it when I can is how I handle mine.
Nursing eats its young? It eats its old, as well.
posted by Mommanurse at 5:14 AM
1 comments
