Nurses vs Occupational Therapists

Specialties Rehabilitation

Published

hi everybody! i'm new here, i'm a rehab nurse for a year now and i have 2 questions.

1) if a certified occupational therapist assistant (or even an ot) brings your patient back to the room, takes the patient to the toilet and would come to you (a nurse) and ask you to do the aftercare and then she would do nothing, what would you do? would you go do it? i mean, they report about patient's toileting status and all that-- how would they know if they don't do it?

2) is it right for any occupational therapist to copy your fim scoring for the patient?

i really need to be enlightened with these.. please..

thank you!

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
1) if a certified occupational therapist assistant (or even an ot) brings your patient back to the room, takes the patient to the toilet and would come to you (a nurse) and ask you to do the aftercare and then she would do nothing, what would you do? would you go do it? i mean, they report about patient's toileting status and all that-- how would they know if they don't do it?
i might sheepishly respond, "you were just in the room with the patient, correct?. is there a reason for you not being able to get the patient off the toilet and perform the after-care? do you have an emergency to which you must attend?"

i cannot stand the pt/ot staff members who do not want to deal with toileting, when it is an optimal time for assessment and patient teaching.

Specializes in Orthosurgery, Rehab, Homecare.

You could play dumb and say something like- "Oh, did they 'go' down in therepy too?" Whe the OT says, "no". Then be like- "oh, then how do you score FIM for toilet unless you see them do it?" And when they say they look at your scores or charting say, "Oh, I thought we were never to chart something that we didn't directly observe. I thought that was fraud...?"

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