NURSES' WORK ENVIRONMENT - PART 1
Today Kara and Geary discuss the Nurses' Work Environment, as part of an ongoing topic of Working Environment and the Safety of Nurses.
Any and all information discussed on this podcast or at goKrazy@thenursesroundtable.com are the opinions of the hosts only. Hosts opinions are not meant to serve as medical advice and do not reflect the opinion of any of the hosts' current or past employers.
Transcript
Good morning.
GEARY:Welcome back to Go Crazy at the nurses' round table.
GEARY:I'm Gary.
GEARY:And I'm Kara.
GEARY:And our goal today, as always is to inspire you to challenge you to
GEARY:become the best nurse that you can be.
GEARY:What are we gonna go crazy with today?
GEARY:Working environment.
GEARY:What do you love or not love about your work environment?
GEARY:Some of my research that I looked at a survey of, careers or jobs.
GEARY:We looked at a survey of jobs that were, where the employees
GEARY:were the happiest, right?
GEARY:Or , what were the happiest jobs and which job do you think was the happiest job?
GEARY:for me, or , in general, in the survey of, of every job, not just
GEARY:medical jobs, of every job out there.
GEARY:I
KARA:have to say something like, in a veterinary clinic,
KARA:like working with animals,
GEARY:actually the number one job with happiest, no with the happiest because
GEARY:who doesn't wanna work at Target?
GEARY:Sorry.
GEARY:Sidetracked.
GEARY:I love targe.
GEARY:. The surprising thing, it was surprising for me, but then it all
GEARY:made sense that the number one job was actually construction worker.
GEARY:No way.
GEARY:Yes.
GEARY:Construction worker.
GEARY:And some of the reasons why, and then this all makes sense.
GEARY:the reasons why construction workers are so happy they work outside.
GEARY:Yeah.
GEARY:So they're always in the fresh air and the sunlight.
GEARY:Gotta get that vitamin D that's so important.
GEARY:They work outside, they work amongst the same team.
GEARY:They work together.
GEARY:So they're all, they're working together and they develop this camaraderie
GEARY:and it's men and women these days.
GEARY:So they develop this camaraderie, this friendship, just this,
GEARY:enjoy working together.
GEARY:They're outside they get to see the finished product.
GEARY:That was part of their reason.
GEARY:So a sense of accomplishment.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:They get all the fresh air, plus they get to.
KARA:expend yourself, right?
KARA:Like the same way, the same feeling you would get at the gym, like
KARA:you're working with your hands, you get all that stress out.
KARA:And.
KARA:, you get all the release in the endorphins, right?
KARA:Then you go home and then you get to see the finished
GEARY:product.
GEARY:Yes.
GEARY:When you start the building and you're working on it, and then
GEARY:next thing you know, it's complete.
GEARY:Yeah.
GEARY:And you can stand back and look at it.
GEARY:Like whenever you do anything, you set your mind, you write your
GEARY:goal down, and then when you get there, the sense of accomplishments.
GEARY:But I think for nurses honestly, nurses weren't even in the top 10.
GEARY:No nursing as a, as.
GEARY:Job or career wasn't even in the top 10.
GEARY:It doesn't surprise me.
GEARY:I was surprised.
GEARY:I thought it would be in there somewhere.
KARA:Unless you're in seeing a patient from the beginning to the end, you
KARA:don't get the sense of accomplishment.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:They step down, right?
KARA:They move from your unit to discharge or from an IC unit to a step down unit.
KARA:So you get that sense.
KARA:Yay.
KARA:They're better enough to move somewhere else.
KARA:But you don't get to see them before they go home, right?
KARA:You don't get to see the finished product.
GEARY:Yes.
GEARY:You don't always get to see the finished product.
GEARY:I think it just depends on what area of the medical field that
GEARY:you work in, whether you're in pediatrics or urine oncology.
GEARY:Emergency services nurses that work in the emergency room, a patient
GEARY:comes in and they start the work, and then that patient gets, if they're
GEARY:critical enough, they get sent in, they get transferred to a room, right?
GEARY:And so that emergency room nurse gets to see the initiation of the care, but
GEARY:They don't get to see, they don't always get to see the patient walk out of the.
GEARY:The patient came in with a, whether it's a broken leg or a gunshot
GEARY:wound or or something, some, somebody fell out of the tree.
GEARY:They don't always get to see the finished product.
GEARY:It just depends.
GEARY:There are situations where you get to, do you remember when you were in the
GEARY:PDE r did you see a lot of patients?
GEARY:Get to go home?
GEARY:Or did you just transfer?
GEARY:Everybody came in, they were so sick, you No, most of them upstair, most of
GEARY:' KARA: em get to go home.
GEARY:, especially with now what we're seeing and the er, it's very, your
GEARY:sense of accomplishment comes from cleaning out the waiting room.
GEARY:It doesn't come from did the patient.
GEARY:Make it out alive.
GEARY:Yes, but in pediatrics, more often than not, they're not
GEARY:coming in for life threatening.
GEARY:If they are right, then, you're just thrilled that they made it
GEARY:to the unit that they need to get to, to get the most care.
GEARY:And I'm not downplaying that at all cuz that's, that is what it
GEARY:is when you work in trauma or any other kind of area in the er.
GEARY:But I think for the most part it's cleaning out the waiting room.
GEARY:That's your biggest sense of accomplishment cuz you don't see your
GEARY:patient later, you don't have any kind of established bond with them.
GEARY:There's.
GEARY:follow up right from the er, you have to take it from somewhere else,
GEARY:I think that thinking I as nurses, when I worked in the PD r ,, I
GEARY:don't know how many times I have to say this, how much I love doing that.
GEARY:It didn't matter if we were able to get the patient came in with a broken leg
GEARY:and ortho comes down, puts the cast on, x-rays are done, X-rays are done, cast
GEARY:gets put on, and patient gets to go.
GEARY:that was very satisfying.
GEARY:Or as you said, the patient gets to get transferred.
GEARY:You were just happy that you made the patient stable enough.
GEARY:You helped the patient to be stable enough to be transferred
GEARY:to the unit they need to go to.
GEARY:And I think that goes across whether adult or pediatrics.
GEARY:Either way.
GEARY:But one of the things I was looking at according to the Bureau of Labor
GEARY:Statistics, nurses, 61% of nurses are employed by hospitals, and
GEARY:we've talked about that before.
GEARY:And what is a physical environment for nurses working in hospitals?
GEARY:What do you think?
GEARY:Do you remember when you were in the hospital?
GEARY:Do you think that it's possible for nurses to have that physical sunlight and.
GEARY:Everything when they're working in the hospital.
KARA:I do.
KARA:I think that it made a huge difference when we went from
KARA:the old building to the new one.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:I mean it was way bigger.
KARA:And then they were like, it's the length of a football field this unit.
KARA:So that was a little scary cuz this, the amount of steps increased.
KARA:But we had one whole side of windows , so we constantly got sunlight.
KARA:Sunlight coming in, hitting the nurses station and then on night
KARA:shift, you work night shift.
KARA:It was a big deal for us, especially around the holidays.
KARA:Around different celebratory things in the city, right?
KARA:. Just to be able to see all the fireworks.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:Because most of us are working most holidays.
KARA:Nine times outta 10.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:And we got to see the fireworks.
KARA:You could see, just the lights across the city.
KARA:Yes.
KARA:It was a big deal having the win the windows.
KARA:I really enjoyed the change from being in a little box
GEARY:to the windows.
GEARY:Right I do love a lot of the hospitals, especially pediatric hospitals.
GEARY:A lot of the hospitals have so many windows the way they're being designed.
GEARY:, the new buildings that are coming.
GEARY:A lot of the hospitals have these beautiful windows and I was
GEARY:visiting a hospital in California and you could look right out.
GEARY:They had this huge window right in the middle and they had six
GEARY:stories, this hospital, and you could go up to the sixth floor.
GEARY:And as you looked out before you went into the unit, they had this
GEARY:central sitting area and a lot of the nurses and doctors would go out.
GEARY:And right across the view across were mountains, literally just right across.
GEARY:Oh wow.
GEARY:You were looking at California mountains.
GEARY:Just the most beautiful view.
GEARY:Wow.
GEARY:And I think that a lot of nurses would definitely get restored by just going up
GEARY:there and just sitting there and looking out, and it's just amazing this feeling
GEARY:that you get as you're looking out.
GEARY:. And it's just, it's a wonderful feeling.
GEARY:So I do think.
GEARY:Your environment and what you're looking at definitely contributes
GEARY:to how you feel about your job.
GEARY:If you're getting to go work somewhere, every shift you go work
GEARY:and you have this amazing view, and you have this, energy around you of.
GEARY:Positive light and you all this fresh air you get as you're coming in and out.
GEARY:And because a lot of hospitals now also are building these outside areas for
GEARY:nurses to be able to nurses and staff, everybody to be able to go and sit
GEARY:for their breaks and they create this beau beautiful park-like environment.
GEARY:. And I think that's really important.
GEARY:The other side of this working environment issue is
GEARY:Not necessarily.
GEARY:I do, I wanna say that I've worked in an environment, but I've seen in working
GEARY:environments where nurses are working and their ceiling tiles are, have water
GEARY:stains on them and they'll keep working.
GEARY:Even though all these nurses are getting headaches, suddenly they're, they
GEARY:moved into this new space and they're suddenly, they're having headaches or
GEARY:everybody's having respiratory issues.
GEARY:And they're trying to figure out, And I happen to notice
GEARY:water stains in all the offices.
GEARY:And this was, and there are some hospitals that I've worked at that are
GEARY:just completely adamant about the minute there's a stain, you have to report it.
GEARY:Yeah.
GEARY:And they replace that stuff and it gets done.
GEARY:And that's a joint commission issue.
GEARY:So there are some facilities, most facilities are extremely.
GEARY:Cautious about those types of things, but I do notice, and I think nurses need
GEARY:to be made more aware of their working conditions because that type of thing,
GEARY:they don't realize that what could be the
KARA:fact that it has on you.
KARA:I've been in, I've been in situations where I I worked for a small group
KARA:of urgent cares and so I went to all different clinics all over the city.
KARA:. . And you could be at one and the busy, the pace is really fast and everything
KARA:moves and they all look almost the.
KARA:But every time I went to one specific clinic, we were always sneezing,
KARA:borderline asthma, tight chest feeling, bad headaches, like you said.
KARA:And I don't think that they just, they never changed the air filters.
KARA:They never worried about what was blowing in the air.
KARA:And that clinic especially was very, it was very tight.
KARA:There were no windows.
KARA:There was no easy way out.
KARA:You never saw the sun ever.
KARA:There was no fresh air blowing through.
KARA:They ended up having a toxic AC leak at one point.
KARA:So it makes a huge difference to be able to for yourself because
KARA:everybody got in trouble when they advocated for themselves at that clinic
GEARY:it's very important that, and that's, your whole OSHA and , all of those
GEARY:agencies are there for a reason, because that can affect your health and that
GEARY:affects your overall job satisfaction.
GEARY:Are you happy at work?
GEARY:How can you be happy at work if when you get there and you have a
GEARY:headache or I think a lot of people.
KARA:I think a lot of people chalk up not feeling well to
KARA:just, I'm busy and I'm tired and I'm stressed because I'm at work.
KARA:So you're gonna have some type of tension, headache, or you might be a little short
KARA:of breath cuz you're like, oh, we have all these people coming in and out.
KARA:The pace has to, everything needs to keep moving.
KARA:Or maybe I'm just tired cause I didn't get enough sleep last night.
KARA:You don't really think about the stuff that's falling from the ceiling
KARA:and dropping on your desk, you.
KARA:It has to really hit you in the face.
GEARY:I don't know that I've ever seen anything actually falling from
GEARY:the ceiling, but I've definitely seen Oh, you've seen Dean falling?
GEARY:Yeah.
KARA:Dust falling and then, how many have, how many times like the spots, water
KARA:leaks, leaking from the ceiling, water leaking, I until it really hits the floor.
KARA:Literally
GEARY:people don't complain.
KARA:Yeah.
KARA:And because we're not taught to complain as nurses.
KARA:It's always seen complainant.
KARA:If I give my opinion or my educated guess, or my constructive criticism,
KARA:it's never taken as, this is what I see that we could do to make it better.
KARA:It's always you guys are complaining.
KARA:There's another one behind you that wants a job, right?
KARA:That's continue to work in your environment or we'll
KARA:find someone else, right?
KARA:They don't wanna, a lot of times it's not, how can we fix this and make it.
KARA:It's just quick complaining and move on.
GEARY:I think that's something that's changing in the industry though.
GEARY:And that's what here at Go crazy.
GEARY:That's what we wanna help, we want to help to correct that.
GEARY:We wanna encourage nurses to be able to speak out when there's an
GEARY:issue in their work environment.
GEARY:But I do think that hospitals and clinics and doctor's offices are.
GEARY:Much more responsive to our nurses, and that's very important.
GEARY:if we can reach out to them, to the stakeholders, the senior
GEARY:stakeholders, then that will make it better for nurses all around, right?
GEARY:Because they can help solve these problems.
GEARY:All right, that's all the time we have for today.
GEARY:We'd love to continue to hear your thoughts and opinions.
GEARY:And remember whatever life hates you today, don't go
KARA:crazy..
KARA:So email us, drop us a line at, go crazy at the nurses round table.com and
