You can read up about what happened in this past Update post before the meeting. I'm really not in the mood to rehash that (I know, weird huh?). Caught up? Good.
So the night before the meeting, the shift started out shitty. I walk in and there is a person in the observation room. I'd say a patient, but they are NO patient of ours. They're 13. We do NOT handle adolescents. We're not licensed for it. The corporate director of admissions is there and she keeps going over our responsibilities, saying that we are legally required to offer an assessment to anybody that walks in. Yes, even to adolescents.
That would be problematic enough. But we also have another patient that just walked in. And another patient getting dropped off in the ambulance bay. And while we have a counselor that's working from 11am to 11pm, she's still in training/orientation. So the two nurses that have set all of this up are leaving. I'm immediately anxious as we have two nurses (A and me), three patients, and need to get the kid out of there pronto. And we have the corporate director calmly wasting everybody's time with an educational summit on our legal responsibilities.
I see it as simple. Get the kid the fuck out of here. Call an ambulance, transfer them to the local ER, let the ER find a suitable facility for them. They're voluntary but also admitted enough to become involuntary. They're a danger to themself. So they need to go and get help. NOW.
I finally walk out of the corporate director's TED talk to get the next patient in. Once she's settled in a room (we have to move the kid because kids and adults can't mix), I come back in and make sure A and I are on the same page. A is taking the walk in, I'm taking the adult that just got here via ambulance and I'll handle the kid. The kid is easy as we're sending their information out to sister facilities to see if they can accept them.
Without going into every detail, juggling the two patients is impossible. The adult is out of her mind and needs to get back to the unit as fast as possible in order to get some meds in her. The facilities we're trying to get the kid to want our local community mental health to clear them since they're on Medicaid. Our local community mental health won't clear someone at our facility, they want them to go to the local ER even though us shipping out an emergency patient to an ER for insurance reasons is illegal.
Six hours after they walked in, we load the adolescent up into an ambulance and send them to the ER. Yes, it's illegal to send her there for insurance reasons but no one will clear them while they're at our facility and no one will accept them without the clearance. The reason we give to the ER for their transfer? They're an adolescent and outside the scope of our licensure. The same exact reason all of the nurses gave when the kid first got here and we said they should be sent to the local ER. Six hours earlier.
We had the nurse manager up 'helping' us, but all she was doing was watching the kid. At one point while I was stuck with the adult, the manager took a phone call and found another facility that wouldn't take her without clearance. Other than that it was all on me to handle the kid and set up their transfer.
Later that night the adult patient I finally got to the unit was still going off and now requesting me by name. The nurses on the floor wanted my help and since we didn't have another incoming patient, I went out to the floor to help calm the poor woman down. I helped her make a phone call, I was the 'No' person to most of her questions, and got her to accept the inevitable. At least accept it enough to get into bed and go to sleep.
The night was frustrating but we finally get to the end of the shift. I haven't heard that the meeting has been rescheduled but I'm sure it has to be as they've rescheduled it several times, including once specifically so that "Everybody Can Attend." And my direct supervisor can't attend at this time as she's out on bereavement leave. So it has to be canceled. Right?
Wrong. At the end of my shift the corporate director of admissions comes in and lets me know the meeting will be in the board room. The attendees are supposed to be the corporate director of admissions, B, me, the CEO (a new CEO that I've never met), and the director of human resources whom I've never met in person but have spoken with over email quite a bit.
I finally find my way to the board room and sit down. I know I should protest having the meeting at all as I'm frustrated, but I want to get it done. I'm willing to take the discipline (with the CEO and the HR director there you know its going to be disciplinary) for raising my voice and still hoping that we can talk about the training required for nurses to work safely on the floor as techs.
B comes in and sits across from me. Another woman walks in, says hello to me, and sits down across from me and a couple seats down. I don't know who this person is. I don't give it much thought as she's dressed fairly unprofessionally even for our casual environment. Sneakers, capri pants, t-shirt, and a vest.
B starts up and it's clearly disciplinary. She more or less repeats everything she said in an email about professional communication and how what I did was not only unprofessional but insubordinate. That frustrates me more as I've responded to that email and explained most of it but... whatever. I'm already ready to accept this and she's framed it as a verbal warning. Fine.
But before I can even accept that disciplinary action the other woman speaks up. She passes a piece of paper over toward me saying that this will also serve as a verbal warning for my insubordination by refusing to work on the floor as a tech even after training was offered.
Whoa, Whoa, Fucking WHOA.
Part of B's email was that my concerns warranted further discussion to ensure all perspectives were heard and appropriately addressed. This was no discussion of my concerns and no one hearing my perspective, let alone addressing them. It was me getting written up for what happened. I tried briefly to explain to this person what happened as I'm not sure who she is and if she knows what the fuck she's talking about. I'm not even sure if she's a nurse which makes a huge difference (B is a nurse so I can talk in shorthand with her). It finally comes down to me asking "What happens when this happens again and I still refuse since this hasn't been addressed?" She responds all cocky "Then I'd consider that your letter of resignation."
All the frustration boiled over. I only gave it a moment's thought but I was sure that very night, my next shift, we'd be short handed. I could guarantee that I'd be told to report out to the floor as a tech. This wasn't if it happened or even when... it would happen that very night. So I turned the paper around, pushed it back to this mystery woman and said "Then consider THIS my letter of resignation" and walked out.
B did nothing.
This said she needed my nametag. I ripped my nametag off (it's clipped on... I didn't rip my scrubs) and added my keys and electronic key. She still seemed to want to control the situation and said "I'll walk you out now."
We walked to the lobby and I simply stopped while she opened the door. When she looked at me, a smile literally crossing her face, I just looked over at the admissions work room and remained silent. B, behind me, asked if I needed to get anything from the admissions room. I looked at this woman, whom I was fairly certain was the HR director at this point, and said "Yes. My property."
They both escorted me to the workroom where there were three nurses working and watched as I packed up all my stuff. I then let them escort me out and got into Tatiana. Before I drove off I sent a text to A, since she hadn't left yet, and let her know that I had just quit and was leaving for good.
When she got the message, while I was on the highway, she seemed as upset with the information as me. When we got the chance to talk and I laid out what happened without any embellishments or hidden facts, she was completely on the same page as me.
In short, I quit over patient safety. I quit when I brought a legitimate concern to the administration, the administration said we'd discuss it, and then got written up for it instead and was offered no discussion let alone a resolution.
The next day, after my rage calmed down, I realized I shouldn't have quit. One, I should have stayed and continued to fight. Quitting was about pride. About 'Fuck you, you can't intimidate me'. It didn't solve the problem. Worst case scenario if I'd stayed, I'd have ended up in a situation where they had to fire me (I would NOT be offering a letter of resignation by simply standing up for patient safety). So, I wrote an email to B and included the chief nursing officer on it. I explained how we got there, and finished by asking "How do we fix this?" I didn't say directly that I wanted to come back, but it was my intent.
Later that day I found out that my brother R wasn't going on his planned trip up north. That left an opening for me to go visit A and his family. That would give me the perfect way to get my head clear so I packed up that very afternoon and hit the road.
Normally I'd write out a complex situation like this here. It would both preserve how I felt int he moment and serve as a way for me to clear my head and line my thoughts up. Before I do that, thoughts keep screaming across my consciousness.
- I was right do do that
- She was a bitch
- What the fuck am I doing to do about insurance?
- They tried to buy me off, go with the flow and forget patient safety or I'd be fired
- Why didn't B step up?
- Did they set me up to quit?
- My ethics and morals are worth more than any job or hardship
When I got down to A's house I had a good time. I pushed the thoughts out of my head and just enjoyed their company. The second or third night I was there I couldn't sleep. The room was quiet, there was music, the bed was comfortable, I was tired... but my mind started up that whirlwind again. And it was enough opposing thoughts that I couldn't line them up without writing them down.
So, the next day I had A and J sit down and let them know what happened. They're both FAR more into the corporate world than I am. I've been corporate before, but not for the past 13 year so not only did I get to get my thoughts in order, I got another whole perspective. Their perspective was two-fold. First, they agreed with what I did, supported me for standing up for patients rights. They were proud of me. Second, they said that there was no way I'd ever work there again.
Their opinion is that the corporate machine would see me as the squeaky wheel. The one who not only recognized their problems, but stood up to it. Even if I'd only stood up briefly. If they brought me back, I could sit back, take notes, and prepare a lawsuit. Why oh why would they let me come back. A and J even recommended that I don't mention why I quit at my future interviews.
I don't fully agree with A and J, but not for the best of reasons. I don't agree with them because I don't give the HR director that much credit. The CEO is new because they've been in trouble. The COO isn't even in place... because they've been in trouble. Hell, my direct supervisor might have offered her own two weeks notice because they're in trouble. In other words while what A and J say makes sense, I'm not sure the HR director would know that and I don't think there is anyone else around her to let her know that. What the HR director DOES know is that we are INCREDIBLY short handed before I was gone. The hole I left is big and only makes matters worse.
So when I got back from A and J's place I wrote another email. I'd heard through the grapevine that B might have left the facility. As I said above, I also heard that my supervisor might be on her own way out. So I wrote this email to my supervisor, the chief nursing officer, and... the HR director. I couldn't exactly backstep what I'd written to B so I just softened the language some but was still honest in saying several times that I didn't know who was in the room.
After I wrote the email and sent it on its way, I sent a text to my supervisor (she's bad about reading her email). She wrote back and apologized for not being there to support me when I needed it. She also said she'd talk to the HR director and "Advocate for your return".
That was Thursday. I didn't hear back that day or on Friday. I'm gonna leave it as is for the rest of the weekend and then reach out again Monday after noon. Unless I hear something akin to "Come on back" or at least "Come in and lets talk about it" I'm going to start job searching at that point. I can't just wait around forever when I believe their best response is to not even acknowledge my presence.
That's where we're at now. I'll try to keep you up to date with either getting back to that job or starting my job hunt over again. Lemme tell ya... my therapist is going to have a LOT to say about this.
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