RT bosses, admins think on different level as RTs

I can kind of understand why the administration here at Shoreline has been having conniption fits lately, and why they have been clamping down on on us lately, as I come to work today to learn there is an entire patient floor closed due to lack of patients.

As I wrote in a previous post, the size of this hospital is too small to be considered a large hospital, and too large to be considered a small hospital. As we are too small, we don't make enough money to be able to have extra staff on hand, which should explain to you why I have to work alone on nights regardless of whether I have eight patients on my board, or 22.

We are too large to receive government grants. Which is funny, because when I used to work at Death Line Medical Center, which is about 40 miles from Shorline Medical, I never could figure out how they could afford to have two therapists during the day. The RTs there never got called off, even if there was no work. When I worked there I was told, "If you are scheduled, why would the place call you off?"

Well, here at Shoreline, when it's slow, people get called off work. So how could these two hospitals so close together have such a different view on when to call workers off? I'll tell you the answer, Shoreline is located in such the perfect (or imperfect) location where we have just enough more patients than Death Line that we are over the line that would classify us as a small hospital. And, since we are over that line, we do not qualify for government grants.

So I suppose when the patient load is down, like it is today, workers get called off. The surgical floor and the step-down unit have both been closed, and, of course, all the staff that usually works over there are getting called off. While over at Death Line, even though their census is down too, well, they continue to make their paychecks.

That's just the way the medical field is. In September and October, if you remember from my posts, we were so slow for so long I wondered if it would ever pick up. Then from November through May we were so busy all the staff here was getting burned out. Now the cycle has come full circle, and we are excessively slow again.

So, I can see why the administration would make a big deal about a few miss charted treatments. If we were busy all the time like some big city hospitals, then I don't think the administration would have the time to worry about the minor things. If we were small, and the hospital received extra money from the government to cover its debt as is the case with Death Line, I don't think it would matter either.

But, since Shoreline is not small and not big, the administration spends that extra time looking at all the statistics. They get bored and instead of taking care of more important matters, they sit around double checking all our charting to make sure we dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's. The get nit-picky. And sometimes they make decisions that they see as for the better of the institution, yet they forget to involve us in the process.

And that, my friends, is why some RT departments might develop a low morale from time to time. The admins don't intend for morale to dip, but it just does. It does because the staff feels like the admins are making a big deal out of spilled milk. And, quite frankly, they are making a big deal out of spilled milk. But, as more and more smaller hospitals are merging, or closing their doors, Shoreline has managed to stay afloat -- alone. So, perhaps, this little nit-pickiness is a necessry component of independence.

Now, whether this battle to maintain as an independent hospital works to the advantage to us RTs or not I have no clue. Part of me thinks it would be bad. But, the other part of me thinks that if we merged with Aero Medical Center, that we would all get nice hefty raises so our staff would be paid as well as their staff. As, being a smaller hospital (not small enough, not big enough), the administration here will not even consider the idea of giving us all hefty raises.

But why would they give us raises? All the RTs in this department have been here so long we are all complacent. We have worked here so long, have so many friends here, love it here so much, are comfortable here, that we wouldn't go anywhere else to work. In a way, that's true. I am comfortable here. I love it here. I have many friends here. I'm complacent. And, while I could go somewhere else, I don't. It's far easier to stay here. Besides, if I decided to take another job, at Death Line for example, I'd have to drive. That's wear and tear on my car, and, hell, with gas prices at near $4.00 a gallon, I'm better off staying here, where my drive is only five minutes.

And, with 10 RTs here, and all of us in relatively the same boat as me, the administration can afford to push us a little bit. And this, what I write today, is some of the mentality behind the administration forcing our RT bosses to crack down on our charting, making a big deal of little errors, and make an attempt, as my fellow RTs and I like to put it, to make us perfect.

While I do have a bachelor's degree in business, and an associates in respiratory therapy, I still don't know as much about hospital administration as some of you guys. If I am ever to move up the ladder and become one of them, there is a lot I have to learn. However, I would imagine that my analysis here is not too far from reality.

Usually here at Shoreline the morale is high. Usually, all we little RTs and RT bosses and administrators get along. Some of us get along in close little friendship type relationships, and some of us in good little business relationships. Some of us, like me, have a combo of the two. But on occasion the administration pushes our buttons just because they can. And slowly but surely the morale will decline. The morale will decline until someone gets tired of it all and mossies on into the RT bosses headquarters for a little chit chat.

Then, once the RT bosses realize that they pushed us a little too far, they back off. Then morale starts to climb. Then things get back to normal for a year or so until someone in the administration gets another idea, and the RT bosses, or the administration itself, pushes us over that line again. They will wait just long enough so they think we forgot the last time they tried to cross the line. But we are smarter that: we don't forget.

I've worked here long enough now to know this is how it goes at a hospital that's too big to be small and too small to be big. That's just how it goes.

Tonight I came to work with a self diagnosed acute exacerbation of chronic laziness. I feel this way not just because I had too many days off, but because the patient census is so low again. Now, I'm not making a big deal about this, because I love it when its slow because I get paid to blog, as I'm doing now. And perhaps I blog too much, but you guys can be the judge of that. But the downside of a low census, as I've already explained, is that the admins get all stressed out. And when the admins get all stressed out, so too will the RT bosses. That's just how it goes.

This time around, it was my turn to let the RT bosses know they went too far. I had my little chit chat with the head RT boss. I had to tell him that morale was down. That it was so bad that even people in ER were asking me about the "tension" in the RT Cave.

"What?" he said. "I didn't know tension was that bad?"

Well, guess what? There ain't no tension anymore. While the RT bosses still want to improve our charting, improve the little things, they have backed off. It's like clockwork. I know these guys like the back of my hand.

Sometimes, as I sit here thinking about it, I think I could do that job and better than those guys. I think if I were the RT boss, there would be no lack of communication, particularly because I've worked here on nights for 10 years and I know what it's like to be on this end and I'd have empathy.

Then again, both RT bosses were RTs once upon a time. They are both dragons now.

Then again, I think that once I cross over and become an RT boss, I will slowly but surely turn into one of them. I will slowly turn into a dragon. I will slowly forget about simple RT mindset, and start thinking in terms of money. For RT bosses, money is the bottom line. And money can do a lot of damage to ones mind. Hell, just look at Hollywood for some good examples of that. RT bosses aren't' far removed from that crowd. They get a little wacky sometimes. They don't think rationally. I'd like to think I'd be different if I were an RT boss, but would I?? Who knows.

Now, getting back to the size of this hospital. Death Line has remodeled all its rooms so that all patients now get a private room. They have remodeled all the OB rooms so there is a hot tub in all the rooms -- and they are all private too. And they have a brand new ER. I've decided they get to do all that because of the government grants, which they get because they are just a little less busy than us and are qualified by the Fed as a small hospital.

Here at Shoreline, well, we are stuck with an ER that is just too small, especially in the summer when all the visitors flush into the region, and an OB that is way too old for modern times, and patient rooms that are too small for all the modern equipment and two patients per room.

Yet, even while we have this old facility, the admins have managed to keep it looking pretty sharp. While we have an old ER, we have a damn good staff. While we have an old, rickety OB, we pride ourselves in knowing we have a far better staff than Death Line. We take care of our patients as good as the best big hospital, the best small hospital, and the best hospital that is too large to be small and too small to be large.

And, for the most part, except for a few bumps in the road, the morale is high here. We are all one big happy family. All the units work well together, and I know it's not like that at all hospitals, as I've worked for some where there was no click between departments. And since we all know oneanother on a personal basis, because this IS still a small town no matter how the Fed wants to define Shoreline.

So, while the admins at this too big to be small and too small to be big hospital can sometimes get a little anal about little things, things that would be totally ignored in other hospitals, they still do a pretty damn good at keeping this place together.

Hell, all they would have to do is go down into the basement and look at the main computer to see that I've been blogging here all night, and they could make a big deal about it -- but they won't. They won't because I hold this RT Cave up while they are away. I make this place look good (except for my little piddly mistakes).

And besides, because I'm complacent here, because I have kids in the local schools I'm trapped in a way in this small town of Shoreline. I come to work every day not just because I want to, not just because I'm a great RT, but because I have to. I have to because the alternative would mean moving my kids to a new school again, and I don't want to do that.

The admins know this. They know this because this is how it is for about 80% of the people who work here. Because of this, and because they know I love the aura here at Shoreline, an aura the admins helped to create in those many periods of high morale, they know they can get me for a cheap wage. The funny thing is I know this, and yet I'm still here. I know their game. I'm just smart enough to know their game.

So they won't say a word to me any more about this little game they have been playing about being perfect. Because, as I told the head RT boss the other day when I approached him in a civil manner, "I do not have to stay here. None of us have to work here. We work here because we love it here, but we do not have to stay here. So let's move on."

And we will. For the next two or three years the admins will not try to push us over that line. And they better not, because I could just as easily go over to Death Line and work for a better looking yet inferior institution.

Then again, they might call my bluff.