Update On The War

It is too early to predict who will win the war, but so far we are willing the battles.

The first battle involved nursing station number six. Management wanted us to use it. They insisted that we use it, but it now stands abandoned. We won.

The doctors are unhappy that the station stands empty. They even called a meeting over it. The problem is that it is the first nursing station that they come to when they get off the elevators. Doctors want someone there to help them. We are trying to train the doctors to keep walking until they find us in the back. Slowly they are starting to catch on and management has given up the battle.

Our next battle is to divide our unit into two sections. It is unmanageable for orthopedics and general surgery to be combined. Management will not let us get a divorce, so we have separated, unofficially. As much as possible, orthopedic patients are at station four and general surgery is at station five. We also do our best to keep nurses in the section that they are most familiar with.

Rather than have a charge nurse and a relief charge nurse rule over the entire floor, one charge nurse now stays at station four and the other charge stays at station five. Realistically, it is the only way to keep track over the floor.

We have trained the staffing office and house supervisor to call both stations and charge nurses whenever they want an update. They seem to recognise that it is better to get two good reports than one bad one. It took a couple of charge nurses to quit for management to see our point.

Things are better, but still, we want a divorce. It is unanimous. We want to go back to the way it was when we didn't have to work together. It is not that we hate each other, it is just so much easier to be totally separated. Plus, there is the problem of alpha wolf charge nurses having to work together on various joint issues. I would be so much happier if I didn't have to work with my counter-part. There is a good reason why alpha wolves don't live in the same pack.