When I first started at my job it was awesome. We had a clinical coordinator that would be there whenever we needed her. Would cover call and any room that was running late if no one else could. She would stand up to the surgical services director. This woman left when her husband was transferred across country.
We then got someone who would be there sometimes but seemed to prefer meetings. She would take a call shift once in a blue moon but often would pay another nurse ungodly amounts to take it for her. She was a buddy of the director so never seemed to standup to her. She left to run the ambulatory surgery center my hospital opened.
For six months the position was open and, despite being the nurse with the least amount of OR experience at a little over two years I get asked to fill in as clinical coordinator for the time being. I had been a charge nurse on the floor for years before going to the OR and had often run the OR while management had been away despite minimal OR experience (the more experienced nurses avoided that duty like the plague). I worked my ass off and after a few months decided I want to do the job full time and apply. I keep being told "When you get the job we'll do this." "When you get the job we will do that." I have anesthesia behind me, the surgeons, and the staff themselves.
Only one other person applies. She has twenty years OR experience but no managerial experience, even charge experience. They hire her. I am told to train her and things seem fine while she thinks I am just the one covering the position while it was empty and that I had no desire for it. As soon as she finds out though she stops listening to me and always gives me the cold shoulder. I am no longer put in charge when she and the director are off or at meetings (and they are ALWAYS at meetings). As soon as she started she began to change everything in the department, including the count sheets because "This is how we did it at my old hospital."
We are short three nurses, two techs, and a peri-op support tech as well as several positions in central sterile. We are a small community hospital with only 5 ORs, so this is a lot of staff to be missing. This woman never helps in any area. We are picking up evening shifts on top of our already forty hours most people getting close to fifty hours each week. She doesn't take any call despite insisting that she would when she interviewed. We have so many call shifts open that our once every five weekend rotation is turning more like once every two.
She also feels attacked whenever anything she does is questioned in the least. She had a staff meeting that boiled down to "You all suck. The surgeons hate it here because you can't turn rooms over between cases fast enough (remember, we have no staff and she refuses to help)." Someone brought the lack of staff up and this woman bit her head off in front of everyone.
I feel incredibly unsafe in this environment. We are over worked and exhausted. We have no support and it seems like we are basically being told we are lucky to have jobs. Thankfully for me one of our OB/GYNs told me that the two OB/GYNs are looking for a clinical coordinator to help the office administrator now that they merged. I got the job and am just awaiting a start date. I already feel so much better knowing the bullshit of my current department will soon be behind me. I also learned many things from this new OR clinical coordinator, such as seeing how things work before changin things and to actually listen to my staff and be there for them, seeing as I am their advocate.