Pros
The mid-levels (NP/PA) in the ICU are excellent to work with, educated, easy to approach, and respectful to nursing staff. There is an Intensivist on the Unit during night shift at all times.
Cons
The selected clinician educators leave much to be desired. There are currently five nurses who hold this role for a 28 bed ICU. Most are not qualified for the position. One in particular has less than one year of total ICU experience. I have yet to learn anything new or valuable from them. They are glorified auditors who search for new case studies or CBLS to enforce in order to make their job relevant. One clinician works from home and makes an appearance on the unit once every couple months. The night shift clinician is unprofessional who consistently shows bias. None of them are a valuable resource for any nurse who has more than one year ICU experience at a substandard ICU. Management is uninterested her job and closed off to feedback. There has been a significant staff turnover over the last four years. So much so that HR had an unrequested inquiry and confidential Q&A with the ICU nurses in hopes to resolve the issues. There has been no progress to result from that meeting to this date. This ICU is reactive instead of proactive. The quality of pt care has significantly declined due to lack of qualified educators and the consistent hiring of brand new nurses who are highly under qualified despite completing an internship. Management and clinicians only care about what is documented as opposed to actual events and quality of care. The clinician educators and management attempted to promote false charting (which is illegal and unethical) in order to pass JHACO. The experienced nurses however, stood their ground, held to their morals and oath and gave pushback despite being threatened with write-ups. I have seen medical mistakes swept under the rug due to the fact that the nurse at fault was a personal friend to one of the clinicians. I have seen them attempt to put fault on nurses where fault did not belong in order to protect them or their personal friends who work on the unit. The unfortunate matter is this unit is driving all of the highly competent, moral, educated nurses away to search for a place with higher standards that respects and values them. The majority of nurses on this unit are brand new grads.
