Yes, it's nice that the world wants to recognize that nurses do a lot of hard work. We do! And we deserve people to recognize it.
That said: I hate nurses week.
What is it about a free lunch that turns people into raving idiots? Seriously, if our ED staff educator comes up to me one more time and says, "There's food in the back, you should make a plate!" I'm going to flip out. I think she told me FOUR times yesterday. Yeah, I'm going to rush right the heck in there and pile a styrofoam plate high with greasy bad lasagne and fried chicken cutlets. That everyone has already picked over. It's like as soon as the containers are opened, the vultures descend--and most of them aren't even nurses: unit clerks, techs, and transporters are the ones to get there first. If I DO make my plate, I have to put my haul into the fridge for when I go on my lunch break around three pm. Ew, no thanks. Not to mention that the LAST place I want to be on my break is in our stinky, windowless lounge with the TV blaring and people comparing bunions. I need some FRESH AIR and an actual nutritious lunch, thank you very much.
And then we had a Viennese Hour in the cafeteria with raffles and snacks and cheesecake. People came back from that thing with plates PILED with three and four pieces of cheesecake. What, are you stocking up for winter? At the raffle, they were giving away iPods and digital cameras and gift baskets and stuff like that. I hate raffles. The single most annoying and cantankerous nurse on the ED won a digital camera and then spent the next hour going up to everyone, shrieking about how she won and showing them her booty and visibly gloating. The nicest, sweetest nurse in the ED won a huge, ugly Christmas ornament in the shape of a house that sits out and gathers dust. She sighed and said, "well, it's nice that I won, but how am I going to get this thing home?" It's like two feet tall.
The worst thing was that the docs on the floor had been given roses to hand out to the nurses. GACK. That skeeves me on SO MANY LEVELS I can't even get into it.
Again, it's nice to be recognized. But how much money did the hospital spend on this weeklong fiesta? And they just laid off FIVE new nurses from the floor and are not renewing our four great travel nurses who work mid- and night shift. And they're not allowing any overtime. So next month when we're all working ourselves to the bone because we're short staffed, who is going to remember a plate of crappy baked ziti or a stale roast beef sandwich or even an iPod? I guarantee that all the money they spent for catered lunches and dinners every day for a week for every unit and six million cheesecakes and electronics and other crap to raffle off would have paid at least one nurse's salary.
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EMS Week is just as bad. Hospitals celebrate it by putting stale bagels and low budget coffee out in the ambulance bay for the morning crews. Lunch time consists of cold, greasy pizza for lunch.
The evening crews get what's left and the night shift gets to see the boxes.
Cheesy T shirts, discount coffee mugs, and signs that proclaim their love for EMS providers round out the list of goodies.
EMS providers are asked (in some cases ordered) to come in on their own time to tell everyone what a great job it is and run blood pressure clinics at local malls.
That pretty much sums it up.
Gary
Leave it to the bean counters to come up with such bright ideas while they get points for saving revenue (and guarantee their own year-end bonuses) by cutting staff and working everyone to death.
It would have been more appropriate to hand out whips to the overseers to use to speed up productivity!!
I agree GG. I hate it as well. We got nasty burgers, fries, onion rings,and root beer floats. To top it off they gave us water bottles, but they are the ones labled #7 that are supposed to be a dangerous and carcinogenic type of plastic,thanks for the cancer! This is made worse by the fact that our hospital just completed construction on a $13 million dollar new wing, and this money was surplus, no loans! Glad they didn't spare any costs for the heart of their "business", the nurses.
Actually, the new construction was 100 million dollars. Sorry, I had my info wrong. In that case thay should give us all a raise instead of a carcinogenic water bottle!
Hospitals are a business.
Their business is mismanagement.
docs hand out roses? hahahahahahaha
Hey,
This is totally off topic but I wanted to post on the blogs I read normally and reach out.
My home institution suffered a horrible loss today with a crash in our flight program.
I blogged about it here: http://traumabay.blogspot.com/2008/05/dear-god-no-no-no-no.html
I know it's off topic but somehow reaching out makes it feel a little better. I'll post more info in the future, it just happened this morning.
At least your hospital gave you a "Nurse's Week." Our politically correct institution turned our nurses week into hospital week and decided to honor all the employees in the hospital.
the docs on the floor had been given roses to hand out to the nurses
...WTF? Ewwww!
I so agree with you about spending money on "visible" "praise" or "recognition" or whatever they call it, rather than truly making our jobs easier or doing something that is truly appreciated.
I think they do it because it's easier to make a few phone calls to get food in, and then just have someone write a check . . .
My hospital had cake and ice cream every night from 6-8. It was kinda funny though becuase when all the docs and transporters and environmental services showed up they got turned away! RT included, but hey what ICU nurse can get by without his/her RT so there was plenty of extra brought back for us.
It is kinda dumb to spend all that money though when everyone is complaining about staffing, and I'm pretty sure EVERY hospital is complaining about that.
We supposedly had food out during our "Nurses Week".
I didn't see so much as a pickle when I walked back, half-starved during the 10 minutes I was able to give myself a "break" (never mind that I'm docked 1 hour for every 12 I work as "break time").
Earlier that same year, we had a "Doctor's Appreciation Day". We were asked to wear pins stating our (meaning "nurses") appreciation for 'em ...
... I gladly would've done so for a couple of awesome docs we had ... but I simply asked: "Would physicians be asked to wear similar pins during Nurses Week?"
Y'all know the answer to that one, right?
All I wanted for Nurses' Week (and for Christmas, too) is adequate staffing and physicians who aren't so freaking adversarial. We almost have the staffing part...the doctor thing will take forever, though.
Is it really so hard to d/c an order for an OTC med that a patient has refused for weeks?
Yes, Spook, I feel the same way as you re: parties. I left my old job and they threw me a party on my last day. The tech who was assigned to my patients made a point, while I was eating, to say one of my patients was vomiting. I had to get up, leave, to find that no she was not vomiting. Tech just wanted more time to eat her food, so she made up the story. I was so mad I wanted to kill her.
But, then again, she (as well as other coworkers--and her shitty attitude) was one of the reasons why I left.
Good Job! :)
Late to the party, but just discovered your blog!
I hear ya on this one. Clerical staff hates "Administrative Support Professionals Week" (Why can't we just say Secretaries Week? It's what everyone calls us when we're out of earshot anyway - whether they're discussing the receptionist or the clinical chief's assistant.) in the same manner. This year we got a beach towel and a $5 cafeteria coupon. Given the size of our hospital, I bet all of us in my division would have given up our towel and coupon to gain one staff member.
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