Grapes that are sour.

I am going to tie up the loose ends of telling you why I left MyHospital.

I had been actively involved in MyHospital's nurse practice council, which is a hospital structure that should give bedside nurses the ability to drive positive practices for both patients and bedside nurses.

It did not have that function at any point in the 18 months i was part of it. We did some bylaws and voted a lot on who was allowed to belong.

I tried. During my tenure, MyHospital rolled out computerized charting. My earlier career was in computer system transformations of organizations. I was uniquely positioned to be able to help in this effort. The rollout was horrible, and the software is cumbersome and ties up nurses in a ponderous way. Nurses everywhere felt that it had a dramatic negative impact on patient care. I'm all about using computers in the 21st century. My idea was to get the programmers to talk to the nurses and make it better.

I was repeatedly told to sit the expletive down. When I tried to engage my fellow councilmembers in discussion that I hoped would lead to some problem-solving, I was shot down. I was told I couldn't discuss it at "this particular forum" because we are not "riding the hobbyhorse" of the new software. To take my concerns to my manager, who was completely ineffectual in addressing the problems.

We went back to voting on who could vote in the club.

Toward the end of my tenure at NPC, another nurse and I initiated a nursing council for my unit. She has decades of nursing experience, but not strong leadership skills. She knows her stuff, but isn't one for bringing attention to that fact. I bring only three years of bedside experience, but I had the leadership skills. We made an excellent team. What my partner in crime identified a clinical priority, I got people organized and working on.

One of our first objectives was to improve outcomes, efficiency and teamwork in code blue situations. We intended to clarify and update our code policies, and start doing mock codes on the unit. Even the other units were excited by this. They wanted to do mock rapid responses for the hospital at large, so they would understand their role in best helping their patients. We were all excited to take on this project. Struck us as an OBVIOUS benefit to our patients, as well as the unit. We divided up tasks and several people were working different angles of the project.

However, we got some new management, who I shall affectionately call Howitzer. Howitzer came to our previously-bedside-RN council and told us that this was not our priority. Our priority was to get our staff to quit doing so much overtime.

For real. With a completely straight face, she said this.

What was so scary about it is not that she said it, but she appeared to believe it. Better codes are less important than the "out of control problem" of people clocking in 8 minutes early.

At this meeting, my partner in crime and I were called "power hungry". This was so patently ridiculous that it rolled off my back. However, it made my friend and partner in crime cry. Howitzer then presented an organizational chart for The New Unit Practice Council, which had management and management's objectives all over it.

My partner and I both resigned within the week. By the end of the next week, every staff member we'd worked with so enthusiastically also resigned. We didn't ask anyone to do so. We were told, person by person, that they felt that it was no longer about the nurses or the patients. It was about management.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere in the hospital, units were closed and new ones opened. Cath lab nurses who worked daytime hours were being forced to other units, with shifts they never wanted. Lucrative units were being closed to remodel pretty rooms for physicians.....docs who'd take a month of vacation, leaving the pretty unit to close. (And the nurses of that unit had to float if they wanted to work.)

Certain bonuses were cut. We were told we weren't making money. At the same time, beautiful new signs advertising the build a new unit (a remodel) for a different physician group. One physician group that brought in a lot of business to the hospital left (rightly) in a huff.

Nobody in those offices was drivin this train.

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In a previous post, I told you we'd had a sentinel event and the state was involved. Howitzer took The State's recommendations and planned to undermine them and make the situation, I believed, worse for patients, nurses, everybody. I sent an email to my boss and her boss saying so.

This was unpopular. I was told she didn't like my way of communicating. I was told not to break chain of command. I was told that my manager was resigning "because of nurses like me." I was told she was making these changes because our nurses were "lazy."

for real.

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I went home to sleep on everything. When I woke up, I remembered that my mother taught me to pick and choose my battles. And this was not something I was going to win, ever. Some fellow RNs I (still) respect wanted me to Fight the Great Fight. Doing so was not going to benefit my patients. Doing so was not going to make me happier in my job and would even worsen my stress and quality of life. There's a long tradition in nursing of martyrdom, a sense of saintliness in Suffering for What's Right.

For what, exactly, I wonder.

At the end of the day, my conclusion was (and I wish nurses everywhere would catch this wave):

I DON'T NEED TO BE RIGHT IN THE EYES OF CRAZY AND/OR STUPID PEOPLE.

So I cut my losses.

Which were few. MyHospital had been my home for three years, and I made fair money. (Instead of merely pathetic money.) I'd made a lot of good friends, which means a lot to me. Mentor friends, too. I learned a lot of invaluable skills.

One day, I had a CRRT patient. I loved doing CRRT from the first day I worked with dialysis. At shift change, I asked a dialysis nurse (a contractor) if she liked her job. She gushed, she glowed. She gave me phone numbers and addresses. She urged me to tell her boss that she'd sent me, because I'd love it...she loved her job, and she was sure I would too.

The day after the last meeting with Howitzer, I made the phone call.

It was really that simple.