Just a Cog

20 Recently, the department I work for at my hospital received a significant national award for excellent patient outcomes. The email was sent out to the entire hospital announcing that we had received this award. The director of patient care replied all saying what wonderful medical care the physicians have provided to get us to this point. The medical director replied all that obviously the head physician of this department gets most of the credit, but the patient care director also receives credit for "providing ancillary resources to support the physicians in their excellent care." Guess nurses are too insignificant to even mention? The director that sits in an office allocating resources is definitely way above the nurses at the bedside monitoring assessments, accurately administering all of the hundreds of meds, maintaining the drips, forcing even the most unmotivated patient out of bed to ambulate, turning at positioning the septic patient to prevent further injury while they recover. We're just cogs in their transplant machine.
Bingo! In this day and age, the bedside nurse is viewed as a largely invisible cog in the profit-generating machine better known as the healthcare corporation.It's a travesty of the worst kind. After all, hospitals exist solely for the provision of nursing care. No hospital would survive with just a medical director and some patient care director. Without competent nursing care, no excellent patient outcomes would ever come to fruition.

How offensive! I'm appalled at that attitude. While i have complaints about my facility, nurses are at least recognized as part of the team. Not as valuable as though Docs, of course but still valuable.

hey, the Docs bring in the $$. That is why Admin flirts with them

This is just another example of how nurses do the hard work, and remain unappreciated.

Quote from TheCommuterBingo! In this day and age, the bedside nurse is viewed as a largely invisible cog in the profit-generating machine better known as the healthcare corporation.It's a travesty of the worst kind. After all, hospitals exist solely for the provision of nursing care. No hospital would survive with just a medical director and some patient care director. Without competent nursing care, no excellent patient outcomes would ever come to fruition.

If you come here to complain, you're preaching to the choir. Take your original post, stop by TruthAboutNursing.com and pick up some stats, and send your thoughts to the local news desk and the health reporter at your nearest big-city newspaper. CC your hospital PR office unsigned. Bet you'll get a call, especially if your note includes the idea that you'd like to be anonymous because you fear retribution.

Quote from OldDudeI second that Bingo! The hospitals complain they have a nursing shortage; they don't. The NURSES have a nursing shortage.

Quote from TheCommuterBingo! In this day and age, the bedside nurse is viewed as a largely invisible cog in the profit-generating machine better known as the healthcare corporation.

Yes, we are cogs. Nothing is new under the Sun. This is basically the way the world has worked ever since the first caveman accrued status and got the other cavemen to make his arrowheads for him. He showed them to the chief of the tribe in the next valley and took all the credit.My answer might seem trite but, happiness comes from within.

Nah, not trite. Very true. I think part of the reason this annoys me is that we're actively in the process of renewing magnet. Our site visit is this winter. Makes me insane the level of bull involved in it. Before magnet ever got involved, nurses would have been recognized. Now, more than ever, it's as if we're at war with the physicians. At least my nurse manager sent us (but not the whole hospital) an email thanking us for the care we provide and telling us we should be proud.

And one can bet that if the outcomes were lower and different, the only one who would be blamed with a whole giant re-education would be the nurses.Magnet is a expensive marketing ploy to create illusion. Now that any number of nurses are realizing this, they are grooming the providers to jump on the train (or unfortunately the bus.....)

Yes! And, we are disposable. We had a very drastic change made to our unit by administration. Our unit had high patient satisfaction scores at the time, great teamwork and a very high safety record. I am assuming the change was made for financial reasons. The change required the nurses to train to a different specialty of nursing. They were not asked. They were told. Those who refused to train were invited to leave. They did not get assistance in being relocated to other units if they were interested in this option. We lost about half our staff, and administration still continued to insist on this change. Now we have float nurses in place of core staff for the moment, have dismal patient satisfaction scores, and patients are complaining about the lack of continuity and consistency of care. And when we get bad scores, guess who gets blamed for it? The nurses.