Any nurse who is not a Director of Nursing will tell you that the DON doesn't do shit all day. To be fair, I used to say the same thing ages ago. Now I know different. But to a charge nurse on the floor the only thing that matters in their eyes is: Patient Care in the here and now. They are absolutely right.

Being a charge nurse in a long term care facility can be a tough job. In my facility you might have a patient load of anywhere from 27-41 patients. Depends on the acuity of care for that unit. The charge nurse is responsible for the nursing assistants (CENA's) on her unit anywhere from 3-5. She's responsible for medications, physician's orders, and any treatments the patient may need, from respiratory to skin/wound treatments. Last but not least, documentation. Anyone in healthcare will tell you any care given that is not documented is "not done".

So to say a charge nurse position is hectic, hell yes. It's rare for anyone to get more than a 15 minute lunch break, and what are coffee breaks again? So when that nurse is running behind the person she's going to blame and point the finger at is the boss. Everyone knows where the buck stops and damn if she's not in another meeting.

In a 160 bed facility the charge nurse is always looking at a small piece of the pie. It's my job to look at the whole pie and to sum it up in a few words, to keep it from spoiling or getting all gobbled up.

So I thought it would be fun (for me) to post just what it is I do in an average day since so many times I'm driving home at night wondering what the hell I got accomplished this day.

So for the interested: