A Lot Better than the First Year

This week marks my one year anniversary of working for University of Utah Dialysis Program. It also marks my two year anniversary since I graduated from nursing school. I spent the first year of my nursing career at the VA hospital in Salt Lake City. I had been working there as a secretary 5 years prior to becoming a nurse. It's where I decided that I liked the medical field and that I wanted to pursue a career as a nurse. I still remember the night I made that decision. It was a slow night on the floor and I took a break from my homework while my friend, Michelle went over the benefits of being a nurse until she had pretty much sold me on the idea. It was good then. But the goodness didn't last.

It all started with my first bad manager, Gina.

She hated being a manager. She hated her employees. She hated being responsible. We decided that I would be starting as a nurse as soon as my temporary license came through which was supposed to come to me, personally, by mail. It hadn't come. One afternoon, she called me and asked me why I hadn't shown up for nursing orientation that morning. I explained that it was because my license hadn't come yet. She said that it had come and that I was supposed to be in orientation that very day. I again explained that nobody had called me to tell me that orientation was happening, where or when I should be there, etc. She said that it was my job to know that info (which was impossible b/c I didn't even know my license had come). Like I said, she hated being responsible.

About a month later, Gina quit. Things were good without a manager. In December, Sandy was hired as manager. We all had high hopes. She came and gave the staff a big speech about how she was into teamwork and wanted our opinions and suggestions about how the unit was run. Our high hopes were very quickly dashed to shreds. Shreds is giving it too much credit. More like burned to ashes. Under her watch, patient safety suffered and nurses sanity suffered. There were many who couldn't hack it and quit within a few weeks of the beginning or Sandy's reign of terror. There were many of us who liked our jobs and wanted to stick it out for the patients' sake (not to mention the federal benefits). We spent a lot of time with union representatives, and higher management. We wrote up reports about unsafe incidents and saved our flow sheets from our worst days. Nothing was changing. We went on like this for months. It got so bad that I was crying on my way to work each day b/c I didn't want to face the nightmare. Then I would cry on my way home because of the nightmare I had just suffered for 8-12 hours. Still we persisted in working with the union and upper management. I cut my hours back and got another job with U of U in July. One day in late August, I realized that nothing was going to change. The nightmare would remain. So I turned in my two weeks notice.

My last day was September 8, 2007. I went to talk to Sandy because I wanted to get a few things off my chest. I explained that I had loved this job in the past. I didn't want to quit. I had to in order to stay sane. I couldn't work in an environment that forced me to do a half-assed job. I was a better nurse than that. I told her that I had realized that nothing was going to change until someone died because of unsafe conditions and that I didn't want that on my conscience or my license. I was the 17th person to quit since Sandy started (in only 9 months). I don't know how many more came after me. I heard that someone did die because of unsafe patient conditions and that Sandy was fired a few months ago. I don't know for sure.

Since I quit the VA, my work life has been wonderful. My manager, Lisa, is awesome. If I have a concern, which I rarely do, she will take care of it right away. I never cry on my way to or from work. I am allowed to take my vacation time whenever I want. I'm never afraid for my patients lives (at least not related to the quality of care they are receiving). I have great hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 5:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Since the first week of working in Dialysis, I've said that it's not a forever job. But, it is exactly what I need in my life right now. The second year of nursing has definately been better than the first.