Charge

BOY HOWDY was my first charge orientation...interesting.

It seems that I am in fact a shit magnet, so much so that the shift supervisor wandered by and after finding out that it was my first day kindly asked me to leave and not do this again. 

I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of mundane details I have to learn, and I think the hardest part is going to be navigating the ever-changing COVID processes. Overall though I think this will be okay - everyone that has found out I'm going to be charging has been very supportive, which is a very nice feeling. It definitely makes me feel like I've been a positive part of the department, which is what I hope for. I'll never go so far as to drink the Kool-Aid and be like "this hospital is the be all, end all and you should be thankful you get the privilege to work here," but I do want to be a person who isn't a drag to work with and who actively strives to make the workplace better.

My most important goal is to become someone who doesn't charge to get out of work, but in fact does it to make everyone else's work better. I want to be the person who takes whatever frustrations I have with being a staff nurse and works to resolve them, as opposed to viewing charge as a way out from dealing with those daily issues. 

I also won't be doing charge full time. It will only be 1-2 shifts every two weeks, as they want to split the available shifts equally amongst the charge nurses. Their intention is to keep the charges from being solely a charge nurse. They want to have the charges also have regular staff shifts, which I think is a good idea. That way everyone has to deal with the regular COVID rooms, or take a group of four patients, or generally get shit on with a crappy assignment, just like the staff nurses do. If you regularly work a shift in the trenches, you can't get all high and mighty doing charge - you then split assignments and send help and cover your nurses as if you were the one taking that group, because on your next shift you probably will be.

Anyway, I'm optimistic that I won't be dog shit at this, and I'm excited to try something new. I hope I can be a good and positive charge nurse, and will strive for that by acting as if I am assigning myself those patients. Hopefully this goes well, and I'll keep y'all updated!