Why dont we get respect as LTC nurses?

It would be a nicer country if we respected our elders more - but that's our loss. I never thought more or less of LTC until my mother got admitted to a LTC and then I really gave the big picture some thought. Just to keep a patient ambulating, if only to the bathroom, is a really big deal and you multiply that thousands of times a day. Then you start to see how valuable this work is to all of us since it saves us lots of bucks and means so much for the patients.

I hear you! It's even worse in assisted living..........hospital nurses and EMTs sometimes think I'm dumber than a whole BOX of rocks, until I prove that I know my "stuff" as well as my residents by producing a complete and current set of vitals as well as all the proper paperwork, and giving a thorough verbal report. Well, I don't hold certification as a Medical/Surgical nurse for nothing, but even if I didn't have that experience, I'd still demand respect because all nurses deserve it, no matter what kind of work they do. It's simply a myth that nurses go into LTC because they can't hack it in acute care; some do, of course, but there are many of us who enjoy the long-term relationships we have with our residents and co-workers, the feeling of being part of a big family, and the knowledge that we actually DO make a difference in these peoples' lives.

Hold your head up and don't let anyone make you feel inferior---you are no less of a nurse because you chose to work in long-term care! Be proud of what you do, and the respect WILL come.

I am a LTC nurse and possess a profound fondness for my career. Prestige is not significant to me, so I am not too concerned that nurses and others in the medical community think so poorly of LTC. Hospital nurses, doctors, paramedics, EMTs, and others have referred to LTC nurses as 'attendants' and 'sitters' when these derogatory labels are uncalled for.

The lack of LTC respect is related to the devaluation of the elderly in America. When emergency departments receive elderly patients I've heard them state, "Get this G.O.M.E.R. out of my ER!" It seems that the elderly aren't worth our precious time. Today's new nurses want to watch life enter this world via working in L&D, yet few newbies want to be there for the end of an elderly person's life.

Every get so frustrated you just want to cry?

You know what I see as really being the problem (aside from the fact our culture reveres youth to an extreme), we do not teach and promote nursing unity.

Why do we not appreciate all of our subsets as equal parts of a greater whole.

You know, they go on and on about holism in theory class and how the patient is part of an interconnected system, la, la, la...Why don't we apply these same principles to our own profession?

Every nurse ought to be respected and get respect from her/his fellow colleague simply because they are...A NURSE!!! We are part of a profession, if we don't respect eachother, how can we expect others to?

IT'S SOOOOO D@MN FRUSTRATING!

Hi, re long term care. I believe taking care of the elderly is a gift, either you have it or you don't, it's a desire to help the elderly that you possess. Those that criticize this choice don't understand as it is not 'their calling'.
I've worked mostly everything and have always loved the elderly. I've worked subacute when the ward was full of the older generation, I never noticed, seems odd but I didn't. However my counterpart would complain, saying something quite disrespectful regarding the aged of the ward. I think people forget that we, as they,will also be old one day. Others have said I couldn't take care of old people, I admire you.
Hey, I love it, the older I get the wiser I get, the more I love the the wisest souls that God has allowed me to care for. God Bless

When I was in nursing school we had one class in which we broke into seven groups. Each group was given the same case senerio. The senerio was something like "you are stranded in a life boat with seven people... a teenager, a purse snatcher, a rabbi, several other types of people, and finally, an old lady. One of them has to be thrown overboard or else you will all sink, who do you throw overboard?" Would you believe that of those seven groups of future nurses six of them voted to throw the old lady out because "she's lived her life, the others haven't". The instructor mentioned at the end of the class that whenever he does this type of group project, nearly everyone votes to kill the grandmother. To answer the question of the original poster, I'm afraid this mentality is quite common in the medical profession and certainly contributes to the idea that we, as LTC nurses, are worthless. I just look at it like this: one day those with the above mentioned mentality are going to be in the same state as those elderly they currently despise. For their sakes I hope there are still some compasionate souls around to wipe their butts otherwise they themselves may get thrown overboard.

In response to the hospitals thinking WE give bad care, I have to respond...

At my LTC facility, residents are turned, breathing treatments given, briefs changed on time. We absolutely HATE it if one of our residents has to be admitted to the hospital for any length of time because they will come back broken down and in pain. Every time. Just last week, had to send out a sweet man for exacerbation of CHF. He had no breakdown, skin was perfect. I know because I helped with the body audit the day before. He came back from the hospital six days later with stage II to both heels, stage II and stage I to coccyx, and even a stage I on the back of each elbow. Even worse, the TEDs they had put on and apparently not removed or even shifted had been too tight, and he had a blistered, raw ring around each upper thigh from those.

It's not always the LTC nurses who are lazy. That's simply something ignorant nurses say to feel better about themselves.

I'm with you on that one LoriAlabamaRN. I'm am LPN at a LTC (I'm hoping to finish certification in a couple of weeks). I've never been happier with what I do. I've also had some negative comments said about LTC nurses. Once while I was visiting my mother-in-law in the hospital. She was a mess, not given a bath in days,ect......when I asked for supplies to get her cleaned up, turned and so on. The RN asked if I was an aid, I told her I was an LPN at a LTC, she said "Oh, one of those." Well I shouldn't have said it but she said the wrong thing to me at the wrong time, I said "Yes, one of those nurses that has to KNOW their job and not go crying to a doctor evry 5 mins." Needless to say, I didn't have any more problems at that nurse.


On a side note, 95% of the staff at this hospital are outstanding nurses and always treated me with respect as a fellow nurse.

Great comeback!

See, a lot of ER nurses will judge us by the residents we send out. That's not always fair. If someone has bedsores in this facility, 99% of the time they had them when they were initially sent here. The other times, it's virtually certain that the resident will not allow themself to be turned, which we chart diligently. If a call comes from the ER with questions and whoever answers the phone doesn't know, well, there are 165 residents here. If you get a different nurse than the one assigned to the particular patient, then chances are they are not going to know anything about them.

As for the problems we don't diagnose, we don't have diagnostic equipment here. It's not that we don't know how.

LTC nurse here, almost 2 years...."sitters"...gotta laugh...what nurse in LTC has time to "sit"? They have no idea, do they?





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