Who has more stess RT or RN? - Page 3

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  1. Nov 14, '11 by
    Tell her to go with PT, OT, or speech therapy. By appointment only and great hours.

    On nights, we have two to three RTs for the entire facility. One of them stopped by our unit to do charting. His list of people he had to chart on covered an entire page! They have their scheduled treatments, labs, vent/BiPAP/CPAP set ups and monitoring, plus they get pages from the floors and from the ER for off-schedule needs.

    I think they can be equally stressful in an acute care setting.
    maelstrom143 likes this.
  2. Nov 14, '11 by
    Quote from cacentralvalley
    Laughing RN, I agree, and I don't think you sounded mean, she needs to do the research. Would you answer someone's question, "Should I be a nurse?"; no, its up to that person to figure it out.

    I would recommend that she ask if she could shadow both jobs for a week each, or whatever is fesible. I think that would really give her an inside look to both jobs and she could make the decision well informed. Also, if possible, try shadowing different shifts during the week.

    Best of luck to her.
    also different units because an ICU RN/RT is going to have different stressors than a floor RN/RT IMO. At my hospital the RT's work both the floors and ICU's and rotate between them. I know there are some who really dislike certain units over others but they still have to work there.
  3. Nov 14, '11 by
    Sorry. RN hands down. OKay, sure there's pressure when you have to intubate during a code, I'll give you that one. How about trying to get control of one patient who's crawling out of his skin with DTs, over powering his sedation, and trying to pull out every tube and line WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, your other patient is having chest pain with ST changes and needs to go to the cath lab/surgery STAT!?

    RN or RT?
  4. Nov 14, '11 by
    I can't speak to the relative stress levels between RNs and RTs however, my ex is a PT and if I was 30 years younger and had it all to do over again, PT is the route I'd take. Normal business hours, no holidays, no weekends, and an aid always at hand. Almost autonomous work environment and it seems that there is always some head hunter pointing money at her to switch jobs.
    Your SIL will never get away from stress in any medical position but, on a pain scale of 1-10, PT ranks down there somewhere around a 2.
  5. Nov 14, '11 by
    Quote from RescueNinja
    Neither. Both are stressful.

    FYI, RTs are not the only ones working in highly stressful, critical care environments. Nurses are there 24/7 and a lot of non-respiratory crap hits the fan too. RTs arent there for those stressful moments, but the nurses are.
    Le's not turn this into a "who has it harder" thread. We need RNs and RTs, and everywhere I've worked, RTs were there 24/7 too.
    nrsang97 likes this.
  6. Nov 14, '11 by
    Nursing is stressful, but if the poop hits the fan, do you want to be the one that watches while someone else solves the problem, or do you want to be the one who can actually do something about it?

    Good nurses can prevent more problems in one hour than any other discipline can fix in a whole day. We make a big difference!
  7. Nov 14, '11 by
    Quote from wanderlustRN24
    Someone else mentioned PT/OT and from what I can tell, at my hospital, they have it made!

    They are not present at any of the codes, they simply get the patients up out of bed into a chair or ambulate them in the room or down the hall. If the patient is non-ambulatory, they do exercises with them in bed. There are always 2 (a PT and a PTA), so they don't need help. I get my patients up and to the bathroom/chair/reposition in bed multiple times a day so really, what are they doing differently?
    They make recommendations for activity which the doctor approves. The majority of the time, they come looking for the nurse to ask THE NURSE what the patient's level of activity is and they go from there (drives me crazy, but that's a different topic).
    Also, they probably make twice as much $ as me and get to call themselves "Dr." They see the patient for 15-20 minutes and if the patient is at a procedure, they leave and come back the next day. Easy, breezy.

    But before I offend anyone with these comments, let me say that I am aware that PTs/OTs that work in long term rehab probably do SO MUCH MORE than the ones that work in acute care. I'm only talking about PT/OT in my hospital from what I can see...it looks super easy.

    As far as the original question, I think RN is much more stressful than RT. But I'm probably biased TEAM RN!
    They get to call themselves "doctor," because they've earned the right to do so, if they have a doctoral degree.
    canoehead likes this.
  8. Nov 14, '11 by
    RT can be equally as stressfull. although they only deal with one body system primarily, when things go bad they go bad. Im the rapid response nurse, and when there a call its me and the RT, you can bet I thank my lucky stars they are there with a major respiratory issue or airway issue. Sure makes me a little less anxious being in that room. Managing airways and breathing situations in emergency situations is very stressfull. Theres a lot of times where they do give neb treatments for basic stuff, but they have a broad range of places to work ICU, pediatrics, NICU where they deal with the occilator vents, med surg ect , they can work in pulmonary function labs as well. Both are stressfull, just depends on which area you work. With nursing theres a lot of places to work out of hosiptal so the stress level may not be as bad.
  9. Nov 15, '11 by
    Okay, so you're working on your ICU patient and the ventilator goes BOING! Quick! What do you do??? - Bag the patient.

    Okay, so now you're working on your ICU patient and his total artificial heart goes BOING! Quick! What do you do??? (besides FREAK OUT)

    WHo's got more riding on the line?

    I couldn't name one RT that would have traded jobs with me, pay and all.
  10. Nov 15, '11 by
    It's a bit more complicated than simply bagging however. Say you have a PEEP dependent patient or a patient on HFOV. Will they tolerate being bagged for any amount of time?