Nurses don't do anything

RN_rescue_ninja · Oct 5, 2014

I was a nurse aide for 3 years before finishing nursing school. I still work for the same hospital. I'm pretty observant. I feel like the NA's attitudes about nurses largely depends on the culture of the unit. For the day shift group, which is what I worked, I very, very rarely felt like the nurses were being "lazy" when it came to tasks that the aides can also do. However, in the same unit's night shift group, the aides felt like the nurses were "lazy" in that regard; sitting around, gossiping, reading, etc. while ordering the aides to do every bit of primary care to the patients, even when the aides were spread too thin. A nurse I worked with recently got a job on nights on this unit, and she agrees with the aides opinions. In other words, on the night shift, the nurse culture was "that's not a nurse's job, that's the aide's job." Call lights going on for way longer than necessary because most of the nurses felt that it was not their job to answer the lights. Personally, I work ED nights where there is a real community effort to ensure all patients needs/safety are met by all nurses and medics/aides, like there was on the other unit where I worked days. I can't imagine prioritizing chatting with other nurses and enjoying down-time over answering call lights and helping pts to the bathroom, bedpans, etc.

I got into a huge argument with a friend of a friend once about this. She was a poser who ran around telling everyone she was a nurse but she's actually a nurses aide or something. She said nurses don't do anything. We sit in front of the computer while the nurses aides do all of our real work for us. First of all I called her out on being a poser and a liar. I said no self respecting nurse would ever say she doesn't do anything. If nurses didn't do the assessment part of our jobs and dispense medication and evaluate outcomes, there would be no patient to take to the bathroom or bathe or chat with or whatever else nurses aides think we should be doing. A lot of our practice is the application of nursing science. That's a lot. I used to be a clerk and a tech. I felt the same way about nurses. Now that I am a nurse I have changed my whole perspective on the profession as a whole. Unfortunately a lot of what we do is charting but that doesn't mean we do nothing. But don't get me started. I am always so offended when people say that about my profession.

RN_rescue_ninja · Oct 5, 2014

True. I've caught maaaaany mistakes by docs that would surely kill patients if I had carried out the orders and not used my brain to think it through.

Next time remind them that:

Without nurses, who will stop the Demi-god doctors from harming the patients? Nurses are overworked and underpaid.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Oct 7, 2014

Only two times have comments about what we do gotten under my skin, and both of them were from patients.

One said, as I was introducing myself during hand-off, "I remember you. You waited on me before." I rather tersely replied, "I don't 'wait' on my patients; I provide them nursing care." I also remembered him and his attitude about nurses....

The other was from a patient with a bipolar history who was obviously in a manic phase with repeated, rapid-fire requests for which he would get angry if they weren't done at the exact moment he wanted them done. He saw me sitting at the computer and said rather snidely, "When you are done with your break, I want my Xanax." I replied, "I am not on break. I am charting and reviewing charts, and I will get your Xanax on my next rounds in 15 minutes."

Dtermnd2Bgreat · Oct 7, 2014

Thanks for the replies everyone! I know I'll have to get thicker skin before I do become a nurse, but I just wish people weren't so ignorant about things they know nothing about. To say, "nurses just sit at the nurses station all day" is pretty discourteous.