Week of hell finally over
Finally, my hellish week is over. I worked my 3 pm-11 pm shift since Sunday, until yesterday - so that was 6 days straight. That's something I'm not supposed to do, per doctor's orders. AND....since Monday, until yesterday, I attended a MANDATORY Chemotherapy certification training - every day, from 8 am to 11 am. So that's 5 days straight of classroom shit on 5 hours of sleep. I passed the exam though - it was open book, open notes - and I got 100%.
But, THIS WEEK WAS HORRIBLE. Work is pissing me off. We still have highly acute patients - on life support - living in my unit. Literally, just living in my unit. There's no where else for them to go. Other units can't handle their high acuity, so they can't go there (because they have too many patients already). But they don't necessarily need the heart monitoring that my unit provides. So why are they even in my unit? Just because we have a SLIGHTLY LOWER patient to nurse ratio, it is assumed that we can do it.
WRONG. These patients are TIME-INTENSIVE and SUPER SICK. Each nurse on my unit had one highly acute patient last night, along with 5-6 other patients plus admissions. I feel bad for my other patients, because I spend SO MUCH TIME on just one highly acute patient. I'm trying my best to manage my time for all of them, but there's always one that will HOG MY TIME AND EFFORTS.
You know, it has been PROVEN in studies that the more patients you give a nurse, the higher the chances are of those patients DYING. The risk of mortality is EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED for every one patient added onto a nurses' load. There's just not enough time to care of everyone. And I feel bad that I can't give the care I want to give.
I was so looking forward to next December - that's my employment anniversary - I will be 5 years in December 2008. But the way work has been lately, I don't think I can stand it any longer. I don't want to give up, but I feel...shit, I can't really describe how I feel.
Anyhoo...I have the weekend off now. I'm gonna rest and relax.
But, THIS WEEK WAS HORRIBLE. Work is pissing me off. We still have highly acute patients - on life support - living in my unit. Literally, just living in my unit. There's no where else for them to go. Other units can't handle their high acuity, so they can't go there (because they have too many patients already). But they don't necessarily need the heart monitoring that my unit provides. So why are they even in my unit? Just because we have a SLIGHTLY LOWER patient to nurse ratio, it is assumed that we can do it.
WRONG. These patients are TIME-INTENSIVE and SUPER SICK. Each nurse on my unit had one highly acute patient last night, along with 5-6 other patients plus admissions. I feel bad for my other patients, because I spend SO MUCH TIME on just one highly acute patient. I'm trying my best to manage my time for all of them, but there's always one that will HOG MY TIME AND EFFORTS.
You know, it has been PROVEN in studies that the more patients you give a nurse, the higher the chances are of those patients DYING. The risk of mortality is EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED for every one patient added onto a nurses' load. There's just not enough time to care of everyone. And I feel bad that I can't give the care I want to give.
I was so looking forward to next December - that's my employment anniversary - I will be 5 years in December 2008. But the way work has been lately, I don't think I can stand it any longer. I don't want to give up, but I feel...shit, I can't really describe how I feel.
Anyhoo...I have the weekend off now. I'm gonna rest and relax.
Cheer up my sister and hang in there. Wish I was there to help you relax!! Sure you don't wanna move out here and get paid more mula? ;)
Posted by
Unknown |
9/23/2007 10:21:00 AM
thanks Chet ^_^ I will visit you next year when Val and Myloe go back there - I'll see how it is :-P
Posted by
ronnie |
9/25/2007 08:53:00 PM