With the recent bad weather and the East coast blizzard, there is a need for nurses to work a lot of overtime. Is mandatory overtime legal? For your answer to that question, you will have to check with your State Labor Department. Each State has different requirements. For example: in New York there is a State law that protects nurses from being forced to work overtime. [New York State Department of Labor NYS DOL §167] To see if your state has mandatory overtime legislation, check out … [Read more...]
When Life Hands You Lemons
Have you ever felt that when something so unexpectedly happens, it’s like you’ve been kicked in the gut? This is how a lot of my nurses and other health care providers feel when they are terminated from their position or get a complaint before the Licensing Board. They are good practitioners, but then out of the blue something happens. When this happens, take responsibility. I’m not saying that you necessarily should admit the incident is your fault, but to take responsibility from the … [Read more...]
Are You Following Your Hospital’s Policies?
Do you know your hospital’s policies and procedures? Do you follow them? If you have worked at numerous places, you probably have noticed that each hospital has its own specific policies and procedures. It may never occur to you to look up the policy or procedure on something because, as the saying goes, “We’ve always done it this way.” But, be careful! There are variations in the policies and procedures of facilities. At one facility you might draw blood from a central line but find … [Read more...]
Is your job the right fit?
During this license renewal season, I have helped several nurses who were working at a place they knew was not the right fit for them, but continued to work there anyway. I call this “the square peg in the round hole”. The fit could be with your coworkers or with the type of unit and type of patients. No matter how hard you try to force that square peg into the round hole, it just will not fit. You can push it, smash it, ram it or hammer it, but it just won’t fit properly. Are you working in … [Read more...]
Know Your Professional Boundaries
As a nurse or other health care professional, we have a special relationship with our patients. People expect a nurse to act in the patient’s best interest and to respect their dignity. It is extremely important for a health care professional to maintain a therapeutic relationship with the patient. A therapeutic relationship is one where the nurse can apply her professional knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences to meet the patient’s health care needs. When patients need health care, … [Read more...]
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