Thinking of becoming an RPN - Page 3

I agree!

Im still a student but on all the floors/units I have done clinical (acute care elderly, surgical, ED, ICU, postpartum/L&D) there was never psw or any other person that was responsible for ADLs or toileting.. its always left for the nurse to do..When I read the threads from the american nurses it seems like PSW/Pt care techs are on all floors and help with all that stuff and even do blood draws, EKGs, vital signs etc.

That's how they can manage to have the huge nurseatient ratios that they report. This is actually an important piece of information when it comes to arguing for safe staffing levels. When your manager compares your workload or nurseatient ratios to "other" similar units, it's vital that they're comparing apples to apples. If the "other" units they're looking at make heavy use of PSW/PCTs then the comparison is inaccurate. My former manager used to tell us all the time that we had the best-staffed unit on the continent (referring to RN staffing) but she never acknowledged that many of the units she was comparing us to had PCTs and we don't. And she never recognized that those other units allowed much more latitude to their nursing assistants for patient care than ours ever will. (Our NAs generally do not touch patients at all, except perhaps to help with turns.) So when you actually compare apples to apples, you have to have all the information.

We don't even have NA's!

We have 2 on the CV unit and 1 on the med-surg side on days, 1 between the two on nights. Their role is largely making sure that the bedsides are stocked, equipment is clean and returned to its specific home, to run specimens to the lab and to pick up blood products from the blood bank as well as portering. They literally don't touch patients.