Tuesday, July 23, 2013

More of the New Job

Well, I worked this entire weekend plus Monday at the new PRN job except at a different facility. Unfortunately, I had to miss a family reunion on my husband's side during this time. It was quite lonely to return home after working 12 hours to open the door to silence. Normally, the kids run to me and give me big hugs and start to chatter away about what I missed that day. I realized just how much I miss those ankle biters!

I had an 8 hour orientation to the new place - to learn the flow or process of the ER. I think the most annoying aspect was the underlying attitude of the nurses. Many of them have around 1 year of experience and they treat the new people as though they have none, even if you let them know your experience. For example, I was helping the triage nurse take vitals for a pedi patient which required a rectal temp. I grabbed the thermometer and the first thing she asked me was, "You got the red one, right?" I laughed (surprised that she would ask me that) "I'm certainly not going to use blue". She got kind of miffed by my comment. <For those non medical people: Red = rectal thermometer, Blue = oral thermometer - a very basic fact that nursing students learn their 1st semester> Ah....I decided to just roll with it, they continued to say stupid little things like that, but what the heck - no use getting pissy about things I can't control. I guess I proved my worth when I discovered a serious cardiac condition in a patient and assisted the doctor. There was another nurse who knew what she was doing, so we both took control.

When I showed up on Monday, I was on my own, so to speak, with another nurse to run the entire facility. As we introduced ourselves, he asked if I could show him around. Ummm....WHAT?!! Apparently, he had an orientation sometime 2 months ago and haven't worked since. I was the experienced one. HAha. We both had enough ER nursing experience, so I was comforted that if anything bad came in, then we were covered. I shrugged and told him I'd show him what I was taught yesterday and the rest we could either figure it out or wing it. The doctor stopped by the nurse's station to say hello and we advised him that it was collectively our first day, so be prepared and let us know if we mess up any of the ER flow. I guess he wasn't too happy when we asked him if he had a swipe badge to open the med room since we were never given one. It would be difficult to treat patients if the nurses couldn't get into that very important room.

I must say, I haven't had this much fun at any job in a while. We got along and clicked right away. We had more problem solving phone calls and paperwork than patients, but we solved them all - perhaps not in the official process way of this ER, but it got done. No attitudes, lots of stories and laughs, a very mellow day. I hope I work with nurse again, it was certainly a pleasure 'winging it'.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great start to a new job!! Crazy, yet fun!

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    1. I'll take that over stressful and bland any day!

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