Are you relying on your nurse team too much?

Scenario 2
During a particularly heavy shift, you’ve been covering a lot of your fellow nurse’s workload. When the IV of one of her patients goes bad, you stop the IV and let her know. An hour later, when she has gone home and you’re still wrapping up, you notice that her patient’s IV is still in.
Your view: You don’t want to cause drama. You avoid drama like MRSA in an open wound.
Your team’s view: If you don’t report it, it will continue happening.
What you can do: Talk to your nurse manager about the situation in private. Kristine Wilhelm, nurse manager of Transitional Care at Lapeer Regional Medical Center in Lapeer, Mich., understands that it can be difficult for nurses to report incidents on their co-workers. “I know it’s hard, but you have to realize that if [a nurse manager] doesn’t know about behavior like this, it goes on,” Wilhelm says. “And ultimately, we are here for the patients, not for each other.”

Next: Scenario 3 →