RN listing LPN as professional reference?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Is this ok to do?

She's the LPN I job shared with at my last job, and we have a great relationship. I'm sure she'd give me a great reference. I'm also planning to list my supervisor, a director of a program for which I coordinated services at our clinic, and a nurse practitioner I worked with.

Also, I'm not sure if I should list her as a personal or professional reference. She is a coworker/friend.

PLEASE do NOT turn this into an RN vs. LPN debate! I'm only asking because technically I acted as the LPN's team leader, and I'm not sure listing someone I "managed" as a reference is appropriate.

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.

I am an RN and already used an MHT (mental health tech, kind of like a CNA) as a reference.

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She's someone that knows what kind of work you do. I'd say that makes her a professional reference!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geri, Ortho, Telemetry, Psych.

I would think that is okay but I don't know for sure.:uhoh3:

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Specializes in corrections, LTC, pre-op.
I am an RN and already used an MHT (mental health tech, kind of like a CNA) as a reference.

Yes and yes. I have references from the floor techs to MD's. We are a team!!

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.

No reason not to! A good reference is NEVER a bad thing.

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A friend of mine who is a doctor used me as a reference. I'm not sure if it is 100% appropriate or not, but I have a lot of nice things to say about him and he got the position so...

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Specializes in All ICU, TBI, trauma, etc..

I have had a doctor ask me to give him a reference. We are professionals so why would we not provide professional references when requested?

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About 20 yrs ago when filling out a job application, there were two places for references on the corporation application. One place specifically asked for the name of the supervisors for each job listed; the other place asked for a list of co-workers (I seem to remember the number 5). At the time I would have been hard pressed to come up with the name of 5 people who were in supervisory roles, so yes, I listed (to be truthful) the names of all the people whose names I could even remember from my last job.

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Specializes in ICU-Stepdown.

Always dreaded that kind of application question, caliotter3. Mainly because the friends I've always had were never in the field I was working in (or seeking work in) -when I started at my previous hospital, it was the first time I was seeking employment in that particular field -and none of my friends or co-workers from other jobs were in any field related to this one. I mean, they were all bikers who were truckers, printing press operators or construction workers. Not a single one worked in a hospital setting.

I guess the worst was trying to list all my places of employment back 10 years (not a problem today, but at one time, MOST of the places I'd worked at (as far as work history goes) were actually out of business for one reason or another. They no longer existed, and you can imagine its a little tough for the prospective employer to call previous employers that no longer exist (grin).

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