Any DON's With Some Good Advice?

[porcelina]

I have been a registered nurse for 9 years. I have worked in correctional nursing, case management, long-term care, hospice home heath, WIC and community health nursing. My question? I am currently working for a long-term care facility. Our DON is leaving. I have been offered the position. I have also been offered a job at a hospital working on the medical/surgical floor. I feel that I have done my time as a "Floor Nurse" and would like a change. Am I nuts to take this DON position? I realize what this means. I would practically be married to this job and it would cut into a lot of my personal life. The DON who is leaving has asked me numerous times to work in her place and in the place of others who have called in sick. I believe I have shown that I am very reliable and capable of handling employee/family/resident conflicts. Any suggestions? Any advice on what I should do. I have been pondering this for several weeks now, and was just given the green light to become DON yesterday. I am quite scared and excited. I just need some good advice.

Thanks ahead of time,

Porcelina

[jgillyrn]

Hi, I am an ADON now. I passed up a position as DON and regret it! As the DON you make the rules and set the standards ,which if your a good nurse, which im sure you are make a huge difference. I say go for it! Good luck!

[LisaST]

I also say good luck. I left a DON position 10 months ago. It was the position that I always dreamed of having. I thought that I would have some say in how the residents were cared for. Boy, was I wrong. The Administrator had all the say. She was not a nurse, has never been a nurse. She use to be an Activity Assistant and worked at Hardy's. She took her Administrators test and guess what, she now knows everything. I would make a decision and she would over ride me. I was on call 24/7. I never had a day off the year I was there. I loved my residents, but when it came to staff, it was a full time baby sitting job. You could bend over backwards to please the staff and it was never good enough. I had no family life and the stress was too much. I wish you luck and really hope that it works out for you.