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Fuller Hospital

If you want to learn the best way to run a dangerous therapeutic facility, spend a few weeks at Fuller. The so called management team has no insight or empathy for the new hires, who are inexperienced people to work with people who have chronic mental health issues. This facility is  more concerned with bodies to make sure the units meet minimal manning requirements than giving care to patients. The inexperienced, new hires so called mental health specialist are being set up to fail or put in dangerous situations they were never trained for. The milieu leaders only know Fullers policies, and do not have knowledge or experience to know when a patient going into crisis, until it is too late. The milieu leaders are people who never worked mental health at other facilities, and only know Fuller's policies

What I have observed in these so called milieu leaders, is they have limited observation skills to read cues of a person becoming agitated, or who are hallucinating. They do not understand making contact early on, in a sincere manner can bring an agitated person back to a state where they can be given suggestions and directives, if caught early enough.  

.  I have worked at 12 facilities ( registry, public, and private) never fired. This is the only facility I have worked at where I felt unsafe. Where someone was going to get seriously hurt, maimed, or killed.  This was because of the lack insight, experience, and apathy  display by the choices of the management team of the people they chose as milieu leaders. It is also  having so many inexperienced mental health specialist on a unit not knowing the milieu leads are only in charge because they have been at Fuller for years and only know Fuller's policies. 

The  inexperienced new staff were not my primary concern for safety. It is how they are trained and the milieu  leads on the units. The leads are delegated the patients activities, while the nurses are either documenting or handling medications. The people that Fuller's  chooses for milieu leaders do not instill confidence or reassure the patients. I have patients tell me the leads are ineffective. 

The nursing staff are consistently walking on glass that their nursing licenses will be questioned or suspended, if they complain about working their regular shift, then get mandated and expected to report back in less than 8 hours. For safe nursing care, nurses should have the very least 12 hours off between shifts. When 5 nurses quit in less than a week and a class of 30 trainees all quit within 30 days of their training, there are serious issues that management does not know how to deal with.

I was recently hired a few months ago as an RN. I have many years of experience in both hospital and home settings. I have seen all kinds of different job facilities. If you are expecting a standard hospital this is not that kind of atmosphere. This is a psychiatric hospital. We do not take care of Geri psych. We take care of all ages at different stages of their mental illness. Is it stressful at times? Yes.
Can it be dangerous at times? Also yes. However, please tell me another healthcare facility that isn't. 
We do not have security guards, but we do have very well trained staff and many of them that know exactly what to do, to assist with de-escalation, holds and restraints if need be. I feel very safe here. Security would only exacerbate a patient who feels unsafe, threatened, paranoid etc

Do we have the latest technology? Nope. but I love that about this place. You write notes in real charts. There is not med machine. However we do have the ability to scan meds to make sure that a reduction in medication errors.

Lastly the facility has the most amazing staff ever. Everyone is amazing, welcoming and will stop to ask you how you are doing and introduce themselves to you. Whether you are new to a unit or just sitting on your break. 

Yes sometimes we have mandations, but that has only happened once since I have been here. They make every effort to find someone to cover. So if someone calls out and they are unable to find someone , or someone else does not step up then yes, you are mandated. However there is always opportunities to avoid it like picking up a shift, or coming in early when they need help etc, 

The administration here cares about the staff, period, they make every effort to maintain safety, awareness, they have celebration weeks, themed weeks , have a weekly bulletin to recognize staff that are standing out etc. There is opportunity for growth here as well. 

The orientation process is probably the best I have ever been to.
The education staff make it fun and you learn so much.
It is not boring and dull and one where you rather be sleeping. 

All in all this is an excellent place to work. We all have each others back and it is made to feel like you are part of a family. 
There is always good and bad wherever you go, but if you keep your nose out of the drama, or out of the rumor mill etc work hard, smile , be kind then you will love it . 

Psych is not for everyone , but if you think it is for you, this is a great place to see for yourself!!

The training, initially, was wonderful, and made me feel fairly optimistic that I'd be able to get support when necessary, including "debriefing" for staff after restraints with patients. However, I was not there very long before that, especially the debriefing, revealed itself to be nothing more than lip service. I actually physically assaulted on one unit at one point and begged the nursing supervisor for another nurse to come relieve me so I could take a few minutes to collect myself off the unit, and was denied, because the nursing supervisor was covering another nurse's lunch break. Understandable, but still, not helpful for me in the moment, and no one from administration ever followed up with me regarding the impact of the assault on my wellbeing. Only my fellow floor staff, including nurses and mental health workers, actually seemed to care about me; those people are the only reasons I give anything over one star in any category. It became very clear to me within a short period of time working there that the administration's goal was to work every floor with as few staff as legally possible, regardless of staff or patient safety. As a nurse, I felt my opinions with regards to the plan of car were not always taken seriously. I could have more than a dozen patients, and I'd be expected to be the only nurse on the unit, meaning I'd have to pass medications, run group, and participate in interdisciplinary team, as well as write at least half the patient notes for the unit that day, plus any one to one notes; goodness forbid some kind of medical or behavioral situation erupt and I had to deal with that, too. Plus we'd get in trouble if we missed our lunch breaks. Not that we could afford to NOT work through them, anyway. Nurse turnover was high; mental health worker turnover was high. (How could it NOT be?) I will never return to working there and I would never recommend anybody who does not have a background ability to physically defend themselves does, either. Again, I worked with some AMAZING staff, some individuals who truly love what they do and are completely in it to help others and prevent their patients from harm, but those wonderful humans are caught in a difficult trap, limited by their staffing and available resources, with management providing "support" only when it doesn't cost anything. I was physically assaulted a lot. This is somewhere I will never work ever again.

The nursing staff are working too many doubles shifts on the worst possible hours. They start at Midnight and end at 3:30 pm. The second worst double shift is 3:30 pm until 7:30 am the next day. Fuller  does  not take into account safety and well being of patients by having their nursing staff working those type of hours. The unit nurses who I have worked with were dedicated to the patients, I have to question with a nursing shortage throughout country why anyone would put up with the abuse that is displayed by the Fuller Administration.

Not all units have staff restrooms, there was one shift I worked where the nurse had to use the restroom but could not because there were no nurses to cover the unit while she took 3-5 minutes to relieve herself. I am surprised she held for 4 hours. In a health care facility I want to know how is that allowed? 

The offices are cluttered with papers and all types of debris that should have been thrown out years ago. On one unit the machine used to takes vitals was buried and obstructed by peoples personal belongings, the scales are kept in drawers. The crash equipment is kept in sports duffel bags not on a crash cart. I can say the crash equipment are kept uniform in orange and blue duffel bags. If there is code there are three bags that have to be taken.

The operation design of this facility is set up like a labyrinth which if fine for a carnival fun house but not a mental health unit.  The units echo and it is very annoying. What is happening there is no noise absorption on the units.  Imagine a person who is having auditory hallucinations who can distort sounds hearing this type of noise? The units are set up with too many blind spots on the units. The doorways are not wide enough to move a gurney if one was needed.  Patient bathrooms are locked, patients have to ask for the restroom door to be unlocked, which displays the lack of insight this management team has in dealing with patients.   

 I have to question with a nursing shortage throughout country why anyone would put up with the abuse that is displayed by the Fuller Administration.

Working as an MHS, there is a lot of experiences one will have if they are considering the medical or mental health field. In the beginning when the hospital was Arbour-Fuller, it was great. Plenty of opportunity for overtime, no issues with benefits what so ever, and I worked with a lot of awesome fellow MHS's, and was honored to work with some great milieu and unit managers.

Though there have been a share of working with challenging patients and the environment has its days it is chaotic, there seemed to be a good caseload where one would have to focus on one or two difficult patients on a unit out of up to 26 patients that can be in one particular unit.

Since it has become Fuller hospital, there has been a change in the administration, hours have been cut and even had been canceled on core days on, and increasingly had more issues an MHS would have to deal with.

Before the hospital never took in people that are pregnant, wheel chair bound, or anyone that one is not qualified to work with. Now the hospital is accepting those patients putting both a patient and an untrained MHS at risk, and this is a hospital that also accepts sex offenders with other wide varieties of populations.

Toward the end it felt like I was working for the Walmart of mental health and was not doing any justifiable service at the end of the day. More violent and exhaustive patients were being accepted with an unacceptable pay cut every pay check. 

Would have stayed if the hospital stayed as it was in the beginning, but they are making too many changes that are not really beneficial to the people that keep the hospital afloat.

Fuller Hospital is the epitome of a state hospital in the 1960's. The structure is a Manision which during its time as a house must have been wonderful. As mental health facility it is fun house. The first line of One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, is 'one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoos nest. Everything the management is based on feelings. The full time Milieu leads and permanent staff are inept, have zero insight, have poor judgment, and are trapped. Most do not know they have others skills, they are afraid of risk and to leave. I was PRN Mental Health Specialist. I never saw so many useless people who could not think, and could not see when a patient was getting agitated or their behavior was a trigger. Too many of the patients acted out because they did not feel save. I worked in mental health for years. The milieu  leads were stupid and that made the units dangerous. There were too many shifts where the regular staff would not show and people would be mandated. The facility is unsafe because of blind spots in halls, narrow hall ways, very small common areas. The gym was the size of 1/4 of an elementary school gym. There was nothing in it for activities. The gym has a bed in it to train staff about using restraints which, Fuller's policies state hold a person instead of  using restraints.  This hospital's plans look great on paper but operationally they do not deliver. I do not know how this facility passes Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JACO) inspections. 


Over the past year the morale of the direct care staff has bottomed out because the administration has become a clique of unqualified staff that has been promoted from within without attaining any expected skill set. The majority of staff is new because almost 3/4 of the staff from a year ago has quit. A huge reason is the acceptance of patients that the staff are not trained to care for. The MHS position is entry level. 80% of the staff in the hospital on evenings and weekends is MHS staff. That means most of the care is being provided by people with little more than a high school diploma. The 5 day training and 5 day orientation is not enough to train someone to handle the level of care recent patients require. Staff is tired of coming in and getting assaulted day after day. They are so short staffed due to so many people quitting that mandation is almost every 2 weeks, and forget about getting a day off approved, no matter how far in advance you request it. They fire people for the most ridiculous reasons and devote more time to defending themselves in weekly newsletter than should ever happen in a professional setting. I have only seen 2 people leave for a different type of job. The vast majority leave due to the unacceptable work environment for another facility doing the exact same job. The pay is 10-25% lower than facilities in the area. If UHS began conducting exit interviews or sending surveys to staff, maybe they could see some positive changes. The building is dirty, dated and unsafe in many ways.

If you feel like bargaining away your life and sanity for pittance pay, little recognition, and little possibility of advancement, then this is the employer for you. The CEO and most key SLT are more concerned about cutting as many corners possible, putting on airs for anyone watching, and burying problems than truly caring for patients and valuing the core employees who keep the facility running. Unless you're willing to play the same games or have an in via the SLT clique or nepotism, you will not get beyond entry-level with most of the always plentiful job openings. Turnover amongst unit staff is always high. Physicians' educated opinions/recommendations are undermined for the sake of cost and convenience. Case managers are overwhelmed by patient loads, which creates further issues with family and friends. There are numerous safety issues between age, neglect, and band-aid fix attempts of the buildings, as well as a distinct lack of true understanding/empathy from too many unit staff who are either too new or too disenfranchised to appropriately handle the intricacies of the population with whom they work. Whether you're direct care staff or on the administrative side, it's highly likely you'll find yourself frustrated, stressed, and ultimately saddened that your contributions won't be legitimately and authentically acknowledged on a most basic level, let alone by timely and well-earned pay raises. 

I worked here as a register nurse for a few months and I would not recommend that anyone work at this facility. The biggest issue for me was safety issues, both for the staff and the patients. 
There have been multiple instances where I have worked on a unit with aggressive patients with one other staff member and have even been left alone on units for 15-30 minutes. In the short time I worked at Fuller I was attacked multiple times and ended up having to go to the ER once due to injuries. I had to work the rest of my shift before I was able to go seek medical attention because I was the only nurse on the unit. 
In addition to my safety I found it difficult to provide the best care to all my patients because of how many patients I had to work with at one time with often no other nurses on the unit to provide assistance.
Another con is they frequently mandate you to work an extra shift due to frequent call outs/them being short staffed. This makes it hard to have a good work-life balance because of having to work an evening and an overnight shift together and then still be back the next day. 
Overall, the safety issues, lack of support from management, poor work life balance and excessively stressful work environment caused me to leave after a short time and I would not recommend anyone work here.

Unfortunately, all management cares about is filling beds and maximizing money. Every unit is understaffed and these increases in numbers mean an unsafe environment for staff and patients as well as very poor treatment. They take any person who wants a bed regardless of whether they are appropriate or not which leads to a further unsafe unit. Many units have multiple codes a day and there have been many injured Staff during codes. Staff are overworked and don't get any breaks (most do not eat lunch or must eat in less than 10 mins, often do not even use the restroom during work hours). The pay is terrible. Case management is very poor as staff must do everything (intakes, treatment plans, updates, referrals for housing, programs, and providers, collateral contacts, mass amounts of paperwork, and run groups). There is literally not enough hours in a day to do everything they want. Due to these changes which were made by a new CEO there have been mass resignations of MHS, RNs, and MDs many of which have been here for years. This new CEO does not budge and is not willing to work with staff to ensure that staff and patients are safe and treatment is of high quality. There will only continue to be mass resignations.

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