See, there's this one girl on staff who has been there a few years now, longer than my current supervisor, and she, although she is a favorite of the managers because she'll always cover a shift or fill in where needed, is a total thorn in my side. And I'm not alone. Even our supervisor has talked about her being rude to the public, and how that's not a good thing. She's the leader of this little click with two other girls, and they always sit around and make fun of the other staff, and many of the residents. She is especially mean when it comes to new people on staff. The last new person before me she (and her click) make fun of for being *too sweet*. Because she works hard and has a good attitude.
One employee told me that she requested never to be put on shift with K because K disrespects her. I personally believe she was messing with my walkie-talkie for the first week and a half of my work there so that I would never hear incoming calls...and when I complained about it to my supervisor, she then made fun of me for complaining at the first opportunity.
Also, because she has been there so long, she does most things by memory rather than looking at charts/etc. And there are two instances in the last week where a med error was made and I know she is to blame. In one, she was on shift on a Saturday, and when a resident who recently returned from the hospital asked about her B12 inhalations and why she wasn't getting one that week, K told her that she's not on that anymore and walked out before any further discussion was possible. This was related to me by the resident. I checked her chart and she *is* still supposed to get the B12 inhalation and she did miss it that Saturday.
The second was more dangerous. Some residents get their blood pressure checked early in the morning, and if it is below a certain value, one of their medications is supposed to be withheld so their pressure doesn't go *too* low. This resident's systolic was already below 100. The LVN on staff who has been mentoring me said I should look through the recent treatment records and see if I saw any trends in blood pressure worth looking into, and when I did I came across that record. The instructions there on the treatment page say to withhold metroprolol if the systolic is below 100. I asked the LVN to look in the MARS (medication assistance/administration record) and according to that documentation, the med hadn't been pulled. She and I went to the resident's room together and checked the woman's BP several times. It was quite low (top number around 85-90), and we both agreed that it didn't look like the med had been pulled as ordered.
Together, we told our supervisor about it. She is young, unused to managing people, and close with the employee who messed up. And there have been 4 documented and reported med errors in the last year, and if there's another one it will come with a hefty fine and perhaps further consequences to the facility. She said, "Oh. Hmm. Well I will check with K and ask if she pulled the metroprolol this morning."
I get it that sometimes if it is busy, it is possible that she followed protocol and just didn't document it. But we both saw that the resident's pressure was too low, even lower than it was earlier that morning pre-medicated.
Since I'm on a rant here about employee behavior, there's another instance that is bothering me. There is a resident who is having an episode of back pain right now and has had trouble getting back and forth to the bathroom. Apparently a few days ago during noc shift, she pressed her pager for help, and it took a while for someone to come. The resident reports that the staff was "mean" to her, saying things like, "I don't know what you expect me to do if you can't tell me what you need!", "You should be in the hospital!", and "You need a bedside commode, there are only two of us on the floor." I wrote down exactly what she said, and told her I was sorry that she had to experience that along with her current episode of back pain. Then, as soon as a chance, to related what she said to my supervisor. She thought through who would have been there that night, and said, "No, I can't see so-and-so ever saying something like that. That resident's perception is a little off right now. I will talk to so-and-so (staff member) and see what happened from her side."
I appreciate that she doesn't jump to conclusions when there is a chance her staff has done wrong, I really do. But when she's getting multiple complaints about one particular employee, she really needs to take action on it, even if that employee is her favorite person that she can always lean on.
What really chaps my hide, so to speak, is that two of the reasons that our supervisor wrote that she should be employee of the year are her record of "mentoring new employees" and "doing things accurately".
Ugh.
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