1st nursing job in a doctor's office - a little wierded out

Can you please share with us what state this is in?

I believe that in most if not all states the titles "Registered Nurse" and "Licensed Vocational Nurse" are protected titles. That means it is a crime to use either of those titles if you do not have the education and licensure to practice as such.

Here in California, they've gone one step further, and "Nurse" itself is a protected title. Only Registered Nurses and Licensed Vocational Nurses can use the title "Nurse."

The Board of Registered Nursing takes offenses very seriously, taking action up to and including prosecution. A CNA or MA who misrepresents themself as a nurse can face stiff penalties including losing their certification.

If these employees are misrepresenting themselves, it stands to reason that they may be practicing out of their scope as well. That would be a patient safety issue, and if I were you I would go up my chain of command and make sure they stopped. If they didn't, I wouldn't hesitate to report it to the state.

Good advice from Mike. This place has some serious issues and you're totally right to be twitchy about it. Were I you, I'd be looking for something else, and right now! (Don't worry we're not going to close your thread... unless somebody pops off in a really inapporporiate manner!)

Yeah I would keep looking. It just sounds fishy.
A CNA can do technical tasks such as vital signs, weights, blood pressures, EKG's once trained, but they may not administer medications nor vaccines. They can even draw blood if the doctors train them and collect specimens too.
I want to say for medical assistants its the same. But I am unsure of this.
Also I have seen offices where the people have been there so long they can do everything and the other people let them because they have been there forever. ITS STILL ILLEGAL!
But I also know that private offices have their own rules. Even then that point system is whack. Buy the doctor lunch? Seriously? yeah right.

Leaving a job after only a VERY short time is not the same thing (and doesn't look nearly as bad) as staying several months and then leaving. When you leave after only a couple of weeks, it is easy to explain that this job was a total misfit.

For example, you could say that when you took the job ... "I didn't realize that I would be the only nurse on duty. When I interviewed an people introduced themselves as nurses, I thought they were really nurses and that I would be one of a team of nurses." Employers will understand why you left and probably not hold it against you. With this economy, many people are being forced to take jobs that they would not otherwise have taken. If you explain that you were looking for a hospital job ... but no one was hiring ... you took the office job thinking there were other nurses there ... etc. etc. .... I believe most decent employers will understand why you left quickly and not hold it against you.

Good luck!

Edit: Upon further reflection ... that thing about buying lunch for the doctors or paying for points out of your paycheck intrigues me. My first reaction was as negatve and "weireded out" as yours was. But when you think about it, they have a point. They are running a business -- a medical business. The only money they take home to their families is the money that is left after all the expenses are deducted from the money that comes in. When people make mistakes, those mistakes take dollars out of their families' incomes. Staff mistakes cause their incomes to be reduced. So, they want the staff to pay them back in the form of money. It's equivalent to asking store cashiers to make up difference when their cash drawers do not match the register tape. I don't necessarily like it ... but it's interesting to think of it from that perspective. As the daughter of a small town physician who only brought home what was left after he paid all his expenses, I appreciate the doctor's side of that situation as well as the staff's.

I'm sorry...but this is one of the most bizarre posts that I have read on this site. RUN don't walk away from this job. Nothing good can come of this.

I would definitely look into this. Hopefully they are not working under you license to perform these task's.

OMG-

What is going on at this doc's office is so illegal, so wrong, and so insulting to REAL nurses- I am so angry, I wish I never read the post.

It sounds like the doctor is a weirdo with a very large practice and an underlying distrust of his employees. Usually results in mass neurosis of the staff.