Sorry, You’re Overqualified

I know the sucky job market is probably a sore topic at this point, but I figured I might as well add my own sucky experience to the heap…

I’ve decided that I want a tech job—like yesterday. Some people think I’m nuts—I get a lot of “You’re lucky to even HAVE a job” or “You work at a top health care facility—people would KILL to get a job there.” And they may be right. Though it may fall under the colorful umbrella of a facility that many SNs (including myself) would kill to work at as a nurse, right now I have a boring desk job. I sit in a dark corner of a very tall building and push papers all day (and I have the paper cuts to prove it). This is not to say that I am ungrateful for having this job. I do appreciate that said job allows me to pay the mortgage, bills, daycare, among other things. It’s just not what I want to do. I am, as Iyanla Vanzant would say, “in the meantime.” In my heart, I am a nurse. Though I still have four semesters to finish and boards to pass to make it official, those are just mere technicalities. I am nurse—hear me roar. 😉

I am so craving patient care at this point it is driving me nuts. Clinical rotations are a tease—wham bam thank you ma’am and they’re over. And since I can’t legally work as a nurse yet, I figure that a tech position will satiate me “in the meantime.” But just like everyone else out there looking for a job right now—I can’t find one either.

My biggest obstacle and the somewhat of a Catch-22 of it all is that I’m in nursing school. The very thing that makes me more qualified (or at least so I think), and gives me more experience (I also have a Medical Assistant background) also makes me seen as a risk. The first thing they gravitate to on my resume is when I finish school.”December 2011 eh? So that means you would be here what—a year and a half or so?…” They’re already thinking that I’m going to have my way with them and then leave the money (or the position rather) on the nightstand. And then they’ll be right back where they started—interviewing again. But I don’t look at it that way. I always apply for positions where theoretically there’d be an opportunity for me to stay on as a nurse after I complete my BSN. What would be better than hiring this awesome student nurse as a tech and then when she’s finished school hiring her as one of your nurses? By then she’ll have almost 2 years in at your department/unit, and will know the people, the policies, and the politics. It’s a win-win situation right? Apparently they don’t seem to think so…

So I’ve been on a couple interviews. During the last one, I had the opportunity to interview with the departments’ NP. The NP and I really clicked (at least I thought so anyway) and I could tell that I would love working with her and would learn a lot. So I had a good feeling about this one. She looked me in the eye and said she wanted to give it to me straight—”I looked at your resume and I thought ‘WOW, she’d be great!!’ But honestly, I think you’re overqualified—I think you’d be bored.”

*crickets chirping*

Huh—what?? Overqualified?!? 

Well alrighty then…

So after a brief episode of apnea, I pulled my palsied mouth shut.

FML.

There Are No Words…

*RANT ALERT*

I’m sorry but I had to do it. Nothing pisses me off bothers me more than so-called health care “professionals” leaving patients to lay in their own piss and shit urine and feces. I came in today and one of my patients was literally laying in just that—liquid shit feces at that. I’ll give them that she was admitted to the unit sometime during the night. But you cannot tell me that no one noticed the odor that was not only limited to the patient’s room, but was now starting to creep down the hallway. Just how many people had been in and out of that room in the last few hours and just left her that way?—the night shift RN, the day shift RN, the PCAs (don’t even get me started on them), the phlebotomist (who we all know is notorious for waking up the patients at the ass crack of dawn to draw blood)… So don’t tell me that no one noticed this poor woman laying there, writhing in a sea of body fluids. I felt absolutely horrible for her. To make matters worse, she didn’t speak  any English, only Korean. AND HER CALL BELL WAS ACROSS THE ROOM!! How the hell was she supposed to call for help?—especially since she was neatly tucked in a far corner away from the nursing station. She was using the only method of communicating she had available—moaning—and still people continued to walk on by.

So I grabbed one of my fellow Supa Dupa SN’s and we went to work on getting her cleaned up. I should’ve grabbed one of the lazy ass PCAs (who see nursing students and believe that we’re here solely to do all of their work), but I wanted it done right—and without the attitude. Just yesterday, one of the PCAs came into a patient’s room to change his linens but he was on the phone. He asked her if she could wait a few minutes until he finished his call. Her response was: “Okay, but I ain’t guaranteeing that I’m coming back!” Now what type of shit is that to say to a patient?!? These people are sick. They have end-stage kidney and liver disease, multiple transplant rejections, terminal cancer… The least you can do is keep them clean and comfortable. It’s not like you’re doing anything since I’M doing YOUR vitals, YOUR accu-cheks, YOUR a.m. care, and whatever else needs to be done while YOUR ass is hiding in the clean linen closet on your cell phone.

But that’s a story for another day.

So we got my patient cleaned up, put a fresh gown on her, and changed her linens. We talked soothingly (and apologetically) to her as we worked, even though we knew she wasn’t able to understand what we were saying. I just hoped that maybe our tone of voice, facial expressions, something, would convey to her that we cared. Guess it’s just the NURSE in me…

What are you supposed to do in these types of situations? I know this happens often enough—but it shouldn’t. The majority of students (and clinical instructors as well) are scared hesitant to make waves since we’re technically “guests” at these hospitals. But shouldn’t ensuring a certain standard of patient care supercede all of the damn politics? Am I being oversensitive/overreacting? 

What if it was YOUR mother/father/loved one?