I'm taking my stress leave

After talking to my the Vice President of our union, I decided that I am going to take my ordered stress leave. No money is worth how I'm feeling. Today I was having so much anxiety that I was having chest pain!

Tomorrow I'm taking a family sick day so I can go to a job interview, next week I am on stress leave and right now I feel like I have a happy heart and that a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I just got off of the phone with my brother and he said that I actually sounded happy! Happy that is until I have to go back to work

I have a job interview tomorrow, and if I get it, even though it's a low code and not enough to live on without picking up shifts, I'm taking it in a heart beat and handing in my notice instantly! In fact if I get the job tomorrow, I'll be texting it in my resignation to the manager as I wait for my ride.

I wish I had my camera at work to show you my desk. There must be 70 new patient charts sitting there waiting for me to process. And more arrive everyday for both clinics I work in. And I'm dreading the last 2 weeks of April because one of the doctors I'm working with is on call for out patient consults which means that over those 2 weeks I'll be assaulted with probably another 80 consults on top of what is sitting there from 2 weeks ago when he was on call for them at that time.

Not to mention the nearly 4 inch stack of mail that I had to look through because no one did it while I was on vacation.

Then there are the up to 40 or more so chart reminders that I need to go through daily, but didn't get a chance to go through them at all this past week. Chart reminders are made by the nurse and the clerk in order to keep track of patient events and to remind the nurse or clerk to do or check on something. I quickly glanced through Monday, Tuesday picking and choosing which ones I needed to act on and which ones could wait a week or two more to look at. And I didn't get a chance to look at yesterday's or today's at all.

And then there are the charts sitting on my desk from clinic on Wednesday and today that I still have to chart on and do up requisitions for tests etc.

I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. The second doctor's clinic that was pushed onto me in October of last year has made my entire assignment one that could keep 2 or 3 nurses busy full time. One just doing the new patient consults.

And get this! I've asked repeatedly for help to process some of the mega loads of consults that come to my clinic. And I'm always told "there isn't anyone." Yet, I'm asked at least once a week to help out another nurse who is busy.

No. It's never been like this.

The place I went to work had mixed reviews. Some really love it, and some really hated it and left. It all depends on the assignment you have, and your work load. Of all of the people that started around when I started, I'm the only one left. The others have all left. And everyone who has started since last spring, have left too.

I loved my job there until they added that extra doctor's clinic. I absolutely loved it!!! It was the best job I'd ever had .... until October of last year.

The one doctor I work with has 3 clinics per week and it's extremely busy in the actual clinic when we are seeing patients, and even more busy and time consuming outside of clinic when dealing with all of the patient issues, concerns, phone calls, and just the general running of the clinic itself. And not to mention the dozens of new patient consults that come to me when he's on call, which has been every 2 to 3 weeks. Each time he is on call about 40 or so charts come to me to process. By process I mean I have to enter the data into the computer, contact the patient and explain the nature of the consult, have them come in for their initial testing. The chart then sits and waits for the results of the tests. Once the tests come back, the doctor reviews the tests and if the person needs to be booked into the clinic, I have to call them and let them know the time and date. If the doctor wants more testing, I have to arrange for them to come in for those additional tests. This assignment is mega busy. The consults alone is a full time job. There are still consults sitting there from the middle of January that I haven't had a chance to get at, and since then more have been added, and in 2 weeks he is on call for them again which means another 80 or so added to the pile.

The doctor they added to my assignment in October only has 1 patient clinic a week with me, but what a clinic!!! It's often 2 hours overtime every week, and outside of the actual clinic where we see patients, I can spend a whole day just dealing with the problems that arise from his patients because they are all so sick and on chemotherapy. In addition to that because there is no time to do procedures in his 1 weekly 3 hour clinic, I often have to schedule bone marrows and lumbar punctures outside of the clinic, which adds another clinic day to my assignment. There is a great deal to working with a patient on chemotherapy. And part of working his clinic means I also have to see patients and do procedures outside of the actual 1 day clinic where he sees patients. So having to see patients myself eats up a huge chunk of my time.

Not to mention that I can 40 phone calls a day sometimes, and when you have to triage the person and then make arrangements for hospitalization, treatments etc etc, and document on each call, that also eats up a great deal of time.

So far as not worrying about getting everything done, easy to say. Unfortunately in healthcare things don't work that way. Things need to be done in a timely fashion because delays, especially when people have cancer, can have dire consequences.

And the kicker is that the management there is an absolute joke. The manager has no oncology experience, and has never worked in a clinic before, so she has no clue what goes on inside a clinic, yet she looks at a piece of paper and sees "8 patients" scheduled for a 3 hour clinic and feels that it's reasonable. I told her so many times that you can't base anything on numbers when dealing with cancer patients. The first hour of the clinic is for a new patient. Often that 1 hour can extend into 90 minutes and sometimes even 2 hours! That leaves either 90 minutes or 60 minutes to see 7 other patients, some of which can end up taking 30 or 45 minutes instead of the allotted 20 minutes for a follow-up patient. And you can't kick a patient out just because their 20 minutes is up! And trying to explain that to her is as good as smacking your head against a brick wall.

It was more wishful talk than what I would actually do.

That's the one with the one cup of coffee at Christmas!

I've grown to actually like him and I enjoy working with him for the most part. And really enjoy that part of my assignment, despite all of the consults that come in. He can get into rants, but I just nod and agree and it runs its course. I just with my job was the way it was before October.

As much as I don't want to go back there, I have to. Between damage deposits, first and last month rent, my own rent, moving expenses, medications etc, I can't afford to not return to work.

I did however talk to the manager today and did let her know that I was looking for another job and that once I did find one, that I would give the required 4 weeks notice and orientate the new person to my clinics.

I asked about a reference (because I felt that she and I had been butting heads lately and I didn't want to put down a company that was going to give me a crummy reference). I found out that they don't give references one way or another. All they do is confirm that the person actually had worked for the company. Odd policy. But in this case I'm quite happy to accept that.

I also let her know why I was seeking other employment. I told her that I wanted to return to part-time work and that I had quite a lot of stressors in my life right now and that fact that I feel like I'm drowning in my assignment at work.

I told her that I realize I have the same number of clinics per week as the other nurses, but that the actual clinics themselves were not the problem. That the problem is the work that these clinics and doctors are generating and that it's just too overwhelming for one single person to do, not only in a timely fashion, but safely.

I told her that I love my job (which I do), but that since they added that extra doctor and his clinic to my assignment in October, that I feel that I just can't keep up and that it's not fair to me, the patients or to the company, so I've decided that it would be best if I looked for a different job.

To give you an idea of how stressful my clinic assignment is, I went to work today to find that the clerk in my assignment up and quit last week, no notice.