Day in the life of a Med/Surge LPN

Marie LPN, one of our members, would be a good person to ask, though she's not quite in Med/Surg. Actually, she's a Virginia LPN working in the OR.

I went to a hospital base LPN program which was 13 month, we did most of our schooling on a medsurg floor. WE would do every thing( even start iv's) but push meds in IV"s but sometimes if an RN was busy we woiuld just put the push in a 50 cc bag of fluid and hang it as and IV. We had our own load, by graduating we had to have 4-5 pt by ourself. We did everything. Assesment, PCA pumps, chest tubes, ng tubes etc. As far as blood the only thing we were not allow to do was Spike the bag we could do all the rest. I live in louisiana and the scope is very broad. The LPN work side by side with RN's out here for the most part and i was amaze with the respect they gave each other:hatparty: :hatparty:

If you badly want to work on a hospital med/surg unit, make sure that money is not an issue to you. Hospitals tend to pay LPNs very marginally.

On the med/surg/tele unit I work on LPNs can do everything RNs can do except: hang blood transfusions, push IV meds, do the initial assessments on new patients, take telephone orders, and cannot touch PICC or central lines.

I recently moved from southern California and LVNs started between $14 to $17 hourly at the hospital, and between $18 to $23 at LTCs.

I work in a hospital in Pa.. 500 beds acute care on the 6th floor which is all surgical patients: Cabg, general surgeries, Bariatrics, and a lot of telemetry. Chest tubes, drains, ostomies, wound vac's, you get the picture. I carry my own patient load of 6-8 and function to the limits of my practice. Our floor is the toughest in the hospital and the floor hols 48 patients total. I do it all: Meds, assessments, IV starts, dressing changes, call the DR.'s at 2:00 a.m,charting etc etc.. Its out there if you are really interested in going for it and when you get a years worth of experience or so you will be able to go anywhere you want in terms of location. As for the $ its not all that great, about 15.00/hr but it sure helps you develop those skills so when you go back for your RN, which you will, you will have it all over everyone else in you class. Im an LPN with 1.5 years under my belt and I have learned so much by working in this environment that I cant ever see myself in anything else at this point.....P.S. It is very hard when you first start out but you learn over time and it does get better, cant really say easier because its a tough job.