Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC

Does anybody remember when you last said the phrase in the title? Hopefully, when you were a kid and not last week at work! But I bet you said it when you heard something so outrageous that without a doubt you knew it wasn’t true.

So why as nurse leaders do we let that kind of stuff slide instead of pointing out the person whose pants are on fire? Do you want to live a lie as a leader, no matter how staffing challenged you are? I hope not.

Like, when a staff member documents they changed a dressing but it’s dated from three days ago, looks and smells like it was changed three days ago, and the resident told you no one changed his dressing; but the nurse tells you she just wrote the wrong date on it.  If she thinks she fooled you, and you let her, what else is she and her colleagues NOT going to do?

Or your evening supervisor says she followed protocol and utilized your after hours physician service set up to PREVENT avoidable hospitalizations, wrote that in the supervisor report but actually sent the resident to the hospital. Then she said she just made an error in documentation. Sorry, dude, but I smell smoking pants!

Like I passed on in an earlier blog: What you inspect, your staff respects.  Ain’t nobody gonna respect you for letting that kind of stuff slide! Just embrace our inner kid and call “B.S.” Believe me, you’ll be valued more as a leader, not as a pushover.

Just keeping it real,

Nurse Jackie

The Real Nurse Jackie is written by Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC, Senior Director of Clinical Innovation and Education for Mission Health Communities, LLC and an APEX Award of Excellence winner for Blog Writing. Vance is a real life long-term care nurse. A nationally respected nurse educator and past national LTC Nurse Administrator of the Year, she also is an accomplished stand-up comedienne. The opinions supplied here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or her professional affiliates.