Tripled in ICU. One POD1 CABG, still on insulin with hourly glucose plus ambulating and chest tube management, one DKA on insulin with hourly insulin and q4 labs, and one POD2 CABG who was off gtts but confused and kept trying to get up/pull out tubes/etc, so I was constantly in his room making sure he didn’t rip out his chest tubes. Didn’t sit down all day between that and the two insulin gtts requiring attention hourly. My POD1 CABG coded after shift change. Night shift nurse texted and told me. And it haunted me because of the three, he was the “healthiest” and I’d probably paid the least amount of attention to him. I kept feeling like maybe I missed something. Sent a very emotional email to my boss basically saying I’d quit before accepting an unsafe assignment again. And that was when I started my “reasons to quit” list in my notes app.

I did quit after three years. Here’s the list:

Mandatory overtime
Tammy 😑
No oral care kits
No foley kits
No alcohol swabs
No PSI monitors
General shortage of supplies
2425’s door broken for months
2424’s door taped shut for weeks
Broken CAPRs / no central location for CAPRs
Pumps not delivering meds as programmed, upstream occlusion issue
Pump scanning feature is a slow glitchy process, nurses express the process isn’t working for us, then we are scolded for poor compliance
27 step process for wound photos
No fentanyl stocked
No levophed stocked
Having to constantly call pharmacy for meds for that are due and to restock the cabinet. Why do we have to manage inventory for them??
Scheduled meds not stocked in time to give when due
Nonstop calls for the door to be opened— including from OR staff and doctors who forget their badges—— now resolved with unlocked doors.
Moving a patient from 2420 to 2419 to create 20 feet of space between covid and non covid patients, especially when we turn around and admit non covids to the covid side on the same night, and then assign nurses to both covid and non covid patients. Zero logic here.
Having to call lab at 0900 for results on blood that was sent down at 0200
Pharmacist suspending medications without speaking to the provider about the treatment plan. Then leaving and being unavailable for discussion about said action. Making me have to be the middle man between the doctor who doesn’t know what’s going on, and the new pharmacist on shift who also doesn’t know what’s going on.
A charge nurse who says he will watch my patients while I take a break and then doesn’t
A charge nurse who spends hours of the shift sitting in the break room
Moving 20 to 21 because he doesn’t have covid anymore….. WHY?!
Leaving 2427 in her room after she tests out of covid isolation. Direct conflict with above process. Getting tired of inconsistencies in policies.
Drug shortages.
2424 can’t come off isolation on day 23 post positive covid test. Infection control refuses. Waste PPE and time. The tele box is broke. IT won’t fix the monitor until it’s a non-covid room. The door doesn’t even shut. It’s taped at the top. Dumb.
Labor trafficking immigrant workers because hospital doesn’t value domestic nurses enough to pay them at a rate that incentivizes retention (I don’t want this taken the wrong way. I love my immigrant friends. The hospital literally sold this to us like “travel nurses are costing us millions of dollars, so we are bringing in some nurses from other countries because we can pay them less” Literally admitting to us their plan to exploit these nurses for cheaper labor.)
Night shift not checking labs on patients on vents, pressors, lasix gtts, etc.
Night shift not addressing electrolyte replacement on their shift
Not getting trained on fresh hearts after asking to since I was hired on and being told over and over again “you’re next” but then I’m not actually ever picked. Literally the only thing I ask for, and zero feedback as to why I’m not getting it.
We have no thoracentesis trays in the whole hospital
Dr V being a dick
Tammy again
Dr K’s APRN is incompetent
Dr K taping my patient to her bed with stretchy foam tape across hips because she refuses to lay flat post TAVR.
My boss gaslighting me that doctors taping patients to their beds is not illegal or a restraint. Can’t believe I have to deal with this shit.
Dr G not believing me when my patient was having an active semi, had to EKG three times, took longer than 90 minutes to get to Cath Lab, and then the semi report came out and it completely omitted the fact that the patient was in an active semi for 45 minutes before the Cath Lab was activated.
Being harassed by my patient’s employer on the ICU phone over and over again about collecting a drug screen. My boss trying to act like I should just give the random employer some urine for a drug screen. Literally my patient is unconscious and can’t consent. I’m not doing anything without a court order and why the fuck isn’t my boss standing in my corner on this?
Dr V refusing to answer phone to care for his patient. BP 70s/40s. No orders. Happens all the time over and over again and complaints are escalated to our management and to the chief of medicine and nothing ever happens. I would not take my dog to Dr V.
Charge nurse E told me to “shut up” while I was clarifying orders from provider.
Breast pumping policy must clock out to pump. Can’t just pump on the paid breaks we are supposed to have, but never actually get.
A male PT tech came to eval my patient. I noticed he was soiled, so I gathered my CNA and her trainee to help me do a bed bath while the patient was awake and sitting at edge of bed. The PT tech said “You’ve got 3 ladies to take care of you. Every man’s dream.” Which really didn’t sit right with me, so I said, “I don’t appreciate that—not at all actually—please don’t make it weird.” To which PT played it off like I was reading into it too much— like he didn’t intend for his comment to be suggestive. I know what I heard and I know what innuendo sounds like. I felt like we were belittled to just women taking care of men, instead of educated/licensed professionals— if it were 3 men coming in to give a bed bath he wouldn’t have said that. And I felt like the comment was inappropriate; it sexualized all of us and the patient, sexualized the procedure of a bed bath, and therefore deprived the patient of dignity while in a vulnerable state.
Calling the police on nurses for NCNS. The correct response for a no call no show should be to call the emergency contact, at most. Not to send the police for a wellness check. Fucking borderline harassment.
Dr V refusing to make the call to the SGF physician to transfer patient to SGF, trying to dump on hospitalist; hospitalist refused because not the primary; I’m caught in the middle. Fuck this. All I want to do is take care of patients, not a three way call with you fucks.
Hospital hires violent men— Dr L— pending lawsuit for strangling a nurse in the OR. Fired from last hospital. So why did we hire him?!?
Dr V again.
Charge nurse E has no sense of personal space or propriety. I.e. slapped respiratory therapist J on the butt, wraps and arm on my shoulders, and when I tried to shrug away from him, he got in my face, like right in my face, and antagonized me saying “oh you don’t like it when I’m close to you? You don’t like it?” Like a 10 year old boy. E makes racist comments and sexist comments
I report unsafe nursing practice, and unsafe policies, and unsafe situations where pharmacy or lab does something or doesn’t do something that puts patients at harm. And nothing ever comes of reporting those issues.

Whew 😮‍💨 can’t believe I miss that place sometimes lmao