Some good news about my job

I went back to work yesterday, the same place I took a stress leave from.

When I went off work in April I was so depressed that I was suicidal and felt so trapped that I actually found myself making a "plan" to kill myself. I was afraid for myself and went to my doctor and told him I needed a medical leave otherwise I'd end up killing myself. I was afraid for me, and so was he.

He upped my anti-depressant but I was so depressed that I took to my bed for about 3 weeks and didn't have the ambition to have a long term disability form filled out. Weeks went by and still it was just too much effort to even get showered and dressed to go to my doctor. Soon 5 months went by and I'd blown through my savings as frugal as I was living, and I didn't step up my job search until about 1 month ago. So fast forward to day!

I returned to work yesterday because I need the income. I was sick to my stomach and just shook when I thought of having to go back to that place and that nursing assignment.

I met with the new manager who was in the CRN position when I left in April. She has clinic experience, she's nice and she is fair and understands the pressure of the clinics unlike the idiot manager who was there before.

I asked for a change in assignment because individually the 2 doctors I work with have a work load that is managable, but when combined together in the same assignment, it's just too much!

Today she met with me again and told me that they have a new assignment for me. Some of it is an area that I've worked before, and another part is new to me. But the best part of it is the fact that it's in Radiation Oncology. I don't have to worry about monitoring blood work daily, because they don't do much blood work with Radiation Oncology, that is left to the Medical Oncologists to follow. And I don't have to worry about keeping track of patient's chemotherapy schedules.

All of my clinics will be in the morning with the exception of 1 which is in the afternoon. So I don't have to worry about not getting out of work on time, and I'll have the afternoons to do my charting from my morning clinics.

I've worked with 2 of the 3 doctors before. But I know the 3rd doctor. She is the wife of a doctor I used to work with there when I first started and she is a total sweetheart!!

So I'm thrilled! Thrilled! Thrilled!!!

Aw Linda, I'm so sorry to hear you've been struggling with such horrible depression. I knew it was bad... but had NO idea it was that bad!

HOPEFULLY the worst if it is behind you now, because the new work assignment sounds fabulous! I really hope this is a VERY different experience than you had before, and it helps get you back on the road to recovery and enjoying life again!

I didn't realise you were feeling that horrible either. But I do believe that a job can do that to a person. My mom almost got to that point, or maybe she did and just didn't say as much. Thank goodness she found another job which she loves. I really hope your new assignment works out a lot better for you than the old one! You deserve it!!

Sorry you were suffering so badly. I was in the same situation last year before I decided to do the chemo.

Hope your job soon becomes a source of satisfaction, rather than worry, for you.

Take care!

Cally

Linda. My DH just went through a medication change for his depression, so while I can't say I know what you went through, but you have my thoughts. It's awful when a job does that to you...but I'm glad things are looking up.

Lots of coming your way that everything works out great for you.

Part of the problem was work place bullying.

The clerk that was in my assignment was very "unstable." She would go off her medication and she was nuts! And she whined and complained whenever I asked her to do anything. And I'm talking things that are in her job description. Things that other clerks do daily. So I was doing much of her work and all of my work. And whenever I would try and talk to her about something clinic related, she would put her harms up in the air and make funny faces and noises, or stomp off.

I had talked to the manager many times about the situation, and nothing was done. Finally in April of this year I got fed up. I sent an email to the manager and I copied it to the president of our nursing union. I got such flack from that from the manager. She sent me back a private email telling me that she was my manager, not the president of the union, and that I am to address of of my emails to her and her alone. I just kept sending copies of my correspondence to the president anyway, only I used BCC instead.

It was only after I got the union involved did the manager talk to the clerk. It didn't help. She just kept right on undermining me, stomping off, throwing things etc.

And it wasn't only her that was doing the work place bullying. It was the manager too. I would go to her and tell her that my assignment was very busy and that one of my doctors was on call for new patient consults every other week or for 2 weeks in a row with a week or 2 off and back to being on call for a week or 2 again. Each time he was on call it yielded 35 or more, sometimes up to 50 new charts for me to process. Between Mid December and the end of March over 300 such charts crossed my desk. And I had to process each of those while continuing to do 4 clinics per week, field up to 50 phone calls each day, deal with patient emergencies, sort mail, plan chemo treatment schedules, follow up on blood work results, see patients for nurse assessments etc. All while dealing with a crazy clerk and a very verbally abusive doctor who no one wants to work with. Even some doctors refuse to cover for him when he is away.

However, the manager didn't feel my assignment was busy because float nurses told her my assignment was "nice". I told her that I would find it nice too if I left the consults sit there until the primary nurse (me) returned. Or rescheduled the "chart check reminders" to future dates when I was back. Which is exactly what happened. The work was left to sit there until I returned to work from being sick or on vacation or whatever. She obviously didn't like that response.

So instead what she did instead of giving me the help I was asking for, was have me covering other nurses calls and their out patient consults, while they were at work, so that they could get caught up. She did that many times to me, even when I told her that I was weeks behind in my chart reminders and consults.

During my meeting with the president and vice president of the union to discuss what was going on, they told me that it wasn't the first one she did that to a nurse. See, she is all about her budget and she doesn't want to hear a nurse tell her that the assignment is too much because that means they have to start looking at more help, which would eat into her budget.

I was told by the union that it's expected that a nurse will complain about the work load for a period of time (a short period) and then just shut up about it and suck it up when they see nothing changing. That's been the routine there.

However, I'm not the kind of person to just suck up being worked to death while some others sit there twiddling their thumbs 2 full days of the week.

The girl sitting next to me texts her boy friend all day, surfs the internet, reads magazines and spends 1/2 her day talking to 2 of the girls in the room where we sit. She does the same kind of work as in my assignment, only she doesn't have to deal with the outpatient consults (70 to 140) per month like I do.

So when I refused to shut up about the work load in my assignment she did what she did to other nurses who quit working there, and that was pile on even more work trying to get me to quit.

However, I have 16 years of nursing seniority. I'm not just going to quit nilly willy and lose all of that, not without another job to go to. And I have the backing of the union to support me in the work load issue, which the manager hated.

See, people where I work are afraid to get the union involved because they think it will reflect badly on them, and apparently they are right, it does, or did with the previous manager. Which isn't right at all and it's another thing that the union is addressing with the company.

So I decided to go back hoping that the new management will be better. The girl in the position was the CRN there and she's got many years of clinic knowledge because she has done clinics and knows the work involved in running them. Plus she's very nice and she's also fair. She believes that if someone has a lighter assignment, that they should be pitching in to help those who are busier instead of sitting around doing nothing.

So we'll see how it goes. It seems to be going positively right now. And I'm excited about the new assignment. I can't wait to get away from the whole having to monitor blood work and book chemo thing. With Radiation, our clinic will deal with the radiation aspect of the treatment including side effects from the radiation. But if it's something other than radiation related, the person will be sent back to the medical oncologist.

Also the patient turn over in radiation oncology tends to be faster. They come in for x number of treatments and then are discharged back to the medical oncologist. Occasionally there is longer term follow-up depending on the issues, but typically they are discharged around 3 or 6 months following completion of their radiation treatment. So that will be nice too.

Wow Linda, I had no idea things were so rough for you in recent times!

I hope this new assignment turns out to be wonderful and something positive for you

Thanks

Having worked in Radiation Oncology before, I'm familiar with the work. I had a look at the booked clinics for my new assignment, and based on what I see, I'm very happy! The clinics aren't over booked. For 2 of the doctors the referrals office processes the new patient referrals, so I won't have to do that. And I won't have to worry about being assaulted with 70 plus new patient charts per month to process and book into clinic.

Radiation Oncology is busy, but it's busy in a very different way than Medical Oncology is.

With medical oncology the patients are followed long term. There is vast amounts of blood work to book and monitor. There are chemo treatments to book and keep track of and when someone is on chemo the blood work monitoring increases. There are tons and tons of CT and MRI scans to book at certain points during the treatment process. And then there is the crisis that always come up with patients on chemo in the acute phase of their treatments. Many requiring nurse or doctor intervention at the spur of the moment (difficult to do when you are in clinic with another doctor 3 days per week), blood transfusions, hydration or admission to the hospital. And frequently co-ordinating all of this with another cancer care office in another part of the Province.

With Radiation Oncology we are seeing patients either in conjuction with their chemo or after they have finished chemo. Since we are only concerned with a specific area of the body where the tumour is, we don't do blood work monitoring. So we are more concerned with ordering CT or MRI scans to monitor the size of the tumour and the response to the radiation treatment. We are concerned with the symptoms associated with radiation therapy such as skin reaction and whatever other reactions that may come from it. The reactions are very specific depending on the part of the body being irradiated. So the nurse assessments are pretty quick because I can zero right in on a target area.

And the best part is 2 of the doctors (the ones I used to work with before), are absolute cards! Their clinics are a lot of work sometimes, but they make it fun to actually be there, so it doesn't feel like work at all.

I knew you hadn't been posting much the past few months but was not aware of the entire situation.

I hope your new assignment turns out very well for you.

I know how hard it is to be giving 150% and other a minimal effort as I am dealing with this at work currently. ( I blew up though Friday and had the talk with the owners of the business I work for).


Is the clerk in your previous assignment will working there?

I remember you writing about your problems at work, but I had no idea things had gotten so bad. that the new situation turns out to be as good as it sounds. I wonder how many people they had to use to cover your previous assignment while you were off. Hope it put a big dent in the manager's budget.

Originally Posted by GoldyCat

I remember you writing about your problems at work, but I had no idea things had gotten so bad.

that the new situation turns out to be as good as it sounds. I wonder how many people they had to use to cover your previous assignment while you were off. Hope it put a big dent in the manager's budget.

Click to expand...

Well, during the time I was away, they gave the new patient consults to another nurse to do. And I noticed from previous schedules that they had split the coverage of the 2 different doctors between 2 nurses at times.

See the difference between the floats having covered for me in the past when I was off sick for a day or two or on vacation and this time, is that this time I was off for an indefinite period of time and they couldn't just leave the consults sit there for me to get back, or reschedule the chart reminders for me to deal with upon my return.

My mental state was really bad. The only people I told about it were my doctor, my brother and sister-in-law and my best friend. Online I tried to hide it. In some ways I'm an open book, but in others, I'm very private. Now that things are improving, I don't mind talking about it. I just didn't want to bring people down with my mental state being so dark.