Rn's are better than lpn's???

Specialties LTC Directors

Published

I always worked in acute care until 6 months ago when I got a job at a LTC facility which is where I always wanted to be. I have my RN BSN MS and worked VERY hard for all my degrees. Do I feel I'm better than anyone else? No way! Do others make rotten comments about my being an RN? Oh yeah! Just today, an LPN, who has a great position, cut down one of the RNs and said "he's an RN! Yeah right, he's no REAL NURSE!" and looked at me.

I lead a life where I'm nice to everyone from the janitor to the top dogs! I really don't believe anyone is better than another. I'm sick of having rotten comments made though and really don't know how to handle it. It makes me wonder if my desire to learn the LTC area is a mistake. Is this the norm or am I just working at the wrong LTC facility? Thx.

I always worked in acute care until 6 months ago when I got a job at a LTC facility which is where I always wanted to be. I have my RN BSN MS and worked VERY hard for all my degrees. Do I feel I'm better than anyone else? No way! Do others make rotten comments about my being an RN? Oh yeah! Just today, an LPN, who has a great position, cut down one of the RNs and said "he's an RN! Yeah right, he's no REAL NURSE!" and looked at me.

I lead a life where I'm nice to everyone from the janitor to the top dogs! I really don't believe anyone is better than another. I'm sick of having rotten comments made though and really don't know how to handle it. It makes me wonder if my desire to learn the LTC area is a mistake. Is this the norm or am I just working at the wrong LTC facility? Thx.

It's not LTC as a whole, so please don't think that! We have some wonderful nurses, who work well together, regardless of their title. Really, we do ourselves a great injustice constantly degrading each other over who's title is better. I wish everyone was trained the same and be done with it! Let the accomplishments speak for themselves! I see both LPN's and RN's t/o this thread with chips on their shoulders- RN's who feel threatened, LPN's who feel underappreciated. Really, We all work hard, we are all underappreciated, and none of us make enough!

Hi, I recently graduated with a BSN and started looking for work...and everyone wanted experience. There's all the theory and where I'd like to work...and then there's the fact that I just needed a job. The bank wants their money to let me live in this house! I stopped waiting on the hospitals and started applying to LTC and started getting calls right away. I am still in orientation, but even after a few days I have noticed the definite attitude and hierarchy - it is mostly LPN's, a few RN's at the facility and even fewer BSN's (management, but not all management is BSN). The LPN's who are in school say 'when I get my RN, I'll work in a hospital - I'm outta here.' They wonder why I am working there. Um, because I need a job? Some people have said - get experience in LTC and then apply to a hospital, then others say- once you work in LTC a hospital won't touch you. WT????!! I am feeling really confused and rather forlorn about the whole hierarchy thing. I noticed when I was doing clinicals the ICU nurses looked down on the med-surg nurses, who looked down on the nurses in clinics, doctor's offices or schools or ltc or home health. It's crazy.

Specializes in acute care and geriatric.

I have to wonder when one nurse feels the need to look down at other nurses what is going on in our profession. Are we so insecure that we have to raise ourselves up by degrading other good nurses who are doing good work albeit in a different venue?

I have found many ICU nurses come to LTC for extra shifts and what they think is easy work and fail. We have to break this snobbishness and learn to respect each other and the various nursing specialties.

Regarding career, it is all in fates hands. Education and experience are important but I have seen crazy turns and twists in nursing careers that have no connection to logic.

Bottom line, there are no hard and fast rules.

Specializes in Geriatrics, WCC.

I am so tired of nurses "settling" for LTC because they can't find work in a hospital. I won't hire someone with that attitude. I want someone who has a strong desire and passion with work with my elderly. as I've said before and will say again, there are great LPN's out there and some pretty poor RN's. Each person is an individual and are judged accordingly. Personally, for a new grad without any experience, I would rather hire an ADN than a BSN..... more clinical work during school. A few years ago even with advertising, I couldn't find RN's to hire (unless they had issues with their licenses and nobody wanted them). Now they are coming out of the woodwork and my positions are full.

Yikes! It just deleted the post I wrote. I hate that.

This whole dynamic is interesting, if depressing. I have only been working in this facility for 5 days of orientation and the dynamic is striking. And it is the LPN's and the aides that I hear saying it, not the RN's, although there aren't many RN's that I have seen. The ones who have recently graduated with their RN's are all leaving to work in a hospital and the aides and LPN's all say - as soon as I get my RN I am going to work in a hospital. The only ones I haven't heard say it are the RN's! Maybe I just haven't worked with them enough yet.:idea: I'm about ready to take my name tag off and just say "Hi, I'm Jennifer" so I don't have to have that conversation over and over!

In Indiana (where I live) they hire a lot of lpn's for hospital work. In Ohio (where I went to school and got my license and work) lpns are only allowed to work in nursing homes (from what I've seen) and I didn't see them in the hospitals. In Indiana it seems like many of the hospital nurses are lpn's. I don't know what difference it makes to have lpn's in the hospitals.

Nursing is a career shift for me, and I was startled by this dynamic of competition. I have never seen anything like it. I began nursing school because I want to do hospice nursing. Not that I won't do other kinds, but hospice was and is the goal. Friends of mine who have been nurses for decades all say - you should have one year of medsurg right out of school, no matter what else you do later, to 'hone your skills' and see lots of different stuff. Hospice typically wants 2 years medsurg, (according to official statements and websites I've seen) although they have been known to hire from ltc. It raises the question for me - if I work in ltc, am I giving up working in hospice? I don't want to do that. I want to work in hospice. And so I worry that if I do this (LTC rather than medsurg right out of school) I won't be able to get the medsurg that is necessary for hospice. (This feels like one of those stories where the person goes to get the wood who wants the axe which wants the stone which wants the water which wants....)

The pressure in nursing school was just enormous. There was this whole push toward hospital nursing, high acuity nursing, and it seemed like everyone was supposed to get triple phd's and be an ICU/Trauma/Flight nurse at Yale hospital or something - or they were nothing. When I graduated recently, and got out of that environment, I stopped and thought - hey, wait a minute, why did I go to nursing school in the first place? Did I WANT to do all that? No. I wanted to do hospice, although there were many things I liked in school, peds and community among them. The condescension from fellow grads who got jobs in hospitals (esp one particular hospital in the area) is palpable. Wow.

In ministry (where I was working) we talk about 'landmines' that you find by accident - like when you move the chair in the foyer and find out that Mary Smith's great Aunt Bessie donated that chair in 1920 to honor her husband Bill who died in WWI and now Mary is calling everyone to get you fired because how dare you! (I had a friend once who got in trouble because he put out hymnals he found and they were - horrors! the wrong ones! Another really did get in trouble for moving a chair.) So, this topic seems to be a landmine in nursing. Hey - a book title - landmines in nursing!:coollook:

Specializes in acute care and geriatric.
Yikes! It just deleted the post I wrote. I hate that.

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Specializes in R.N. Med-Surg, LTC, Geriatrics, Dialysis.
I have to wonder when one nurse feels the need to look down at other nurses what is going on in our profession. Are we so insecure that we have to raise ourselves up by degrading other good nurses who are doing good work albeit in a different venue?

I have found many ICU nurses come to LTC for extra shifts and what they think is easy work and fail. We have to break this snobbishness and learn to respect each other and the various nursing specialties.

Regarding career, it is all in fates hands. Education and experience are important but I have seen crazy turns and twists in nursing careers that have no connection to logic.

Bottom line, there are no hard and fast rules.

Thank you for posting this, I have worked in long term care for over 20 years, and have been on the receiving end of some very hurtful comments regarding the "quality" of care and nursing knowledge and practice, especially from ER nurses. LTC is a specialty area that is much aligned, unfortunately some of what goes on in the industry perpetuates this, but I really dislike the notion that because a nurse works in long term care their skills are poor, or they just couldn't cut it in acute care. This is so wrong, long term care is community based nursing care more than anything else and has some very unique challenges and rewards you won't find in other nursing venues, especially in acute care.

Specializes in Med surg, LTC, Administration.
While I think there are LPNs who can be better nurses than RNs, the fact that anyone would make rude comments about a degree someone has earned is ridiculous. While working in a hospital, there was an LPN who constantly made rude comments about the RNs and what she "couldn't" do because she didn't have her RN. I finally told her if it bothered her that much, she needed to go back to school. I guess the focus here has become not that there are LPNs who are better than RNs but that so many nurses are sooooo unsupportive of one another.

I think you are making the comment of One LPN, larger than what it is. She could just as well have been an RN, NP or doctor. I have heard these same comments out of all disciplines and within the nursing status. Ignore it. Our business is too brutal, for someone to dwell on a comment. She could have just had a bad day, or someone said that to her the day before. Yes, it was rude, but still one nurse. Most of us do not feel that way, some do, and the few that are wise, keep their mouths shut. Please let it go. That is her issue and no one elses. Peace!

Specializes in Med surg, LTC, Administration.
I am not sure how an LPN can have authority over a RN. I live in Missouri and the State Board of Nursing clearly states that an LPN works under the direct supervision of a RN. I have no trouble asking an LPN for advice, and I value the judgment and expertise of the LPNs I work for, but would have a problem with them being my supervisor. I agree with you that teamwork is crucial. It takes all the nurses working together to take care of the resident's needs , regardless of our title.

:nurse:

What is tripping you up is the LPN is under the direct supervision of A RN. Not all RN's. A DON can delegate to her LPN certain duties, the LPN then delegates the same to an RN. You still, are taking orders from an RN, the DON, but through an LPN. That is how they get around LPN's being supervisors. LPN's are not, nor ever were under every RN. But they are under one. Does that make sense?

Also, you have a new grad or young RN's and 20 plus years LPN's. Who you going to listen too? That is the other dilemma in LTC, not enough RN's. LPN's rule LTC. But that is because, RN's don't stay or if they do they don't want supervisory roles. Someone has to do it...

Specializes in Med surg, LTC, Administration.
Hi, I recently graduated with a BSN and started looking for work...and everyone wanted experience. There's all the theory and where I'd like to work...and then there's the fact that I just needed a job. The bank wants their money to let me live in this house! I stopped waiting on the hospitals and started applying to LTC and started getting calls right away. I am still in orientation, but even after a few days I have noticed the definite attitude and hierarchy - it is mostly LPN's, a few RN's at the facility and even fewer BSN's (management, but not all management is BSN). The LPN's who are in school say 'when I get my RN, I'll work in a hospital - I'm outta here.' They wonder why I am working there. Um, because I need a job? Some people have said - get experience in LTC and then apply to a hospital, then others say- once you work in LTC a hospital won't touch you. WT????!! I am feeling really confused and rather forlorn about the whole hierarchy thing. I noticed when I was doing clinicals the ICU nurses looked down on the med-surg nurses, who looked down on the nurses in clinics, doctor's offices or schools or ltc or home health. It's crazy.

No, it is human nature. We see it more in our field, but all fields have this to different degrees. Peace!

Specializes in Med surg, LTC, Administration.
I'm an LPN, and as a joke, I have referred to myself as a "Little Pion Nurse" hey-- you have to laugh at yourself sometimes. but really- I have learned tons from the CNA's- I respect the RN's for all education they have and the hard work that took, And so we all have our roles, I remember the saying--"It takes a Village"...." yeah It really does. and also dietary- housekeeping -laundry- unit secs. ect.. all of us,.. It takes a village"!!!

In the seventies, we were the "let's pretend nurse" and RNs were the " Real Nurse". But a joke only. Back then and for me 80's diploma RN's were the rule and absolute bomb. We all worked together and did the same procedures. I think the only thing, I could not do was hang heparin. Other than that, we LPN's had the same hospital load as the RN's. We did not think in terms of status, we just wanted the work done. I thank God for that and feel badly for LPN's today. They do not get the same experience, have the same opportunities or respect, as we had. Peace!

Specializes in Geriatrics, WCC.

Where I work, LPN's can not supervise, but they can be a charge nurse of the "building".

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