Another vent about nurse vs aide

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I just don't understand nurses that are so utterly oblivious to all the work that aides do. I understand that meds need to be passed and you have to call the doctor and do a million other things but when you are sitting at the nurses station for 30 minutes talking to your wife on your cell phone and then have the nerve to go to the charge about how I didn't tell you the blood sugar reading within 10 minutes of getting them when 6 out of 8 of my patients had to pee, plus there is a patient receiving blood that needs vitals every 30 minutes, oh and there's an admit coming in 15 minutes, and you aren't helping, it kind of ****** people off. And whispering in corners just makes me even less willing to help you out, especially after I've already cried in the bathroom being so frustrated.

UGH. Vent much needed.

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Specializes in ER.

I agree! However, I blame more of the healthcare setting. Everyone is put into a situation where there are too many patients that need more intensive care than there are both aides and nurses to go around! There is a reason why we have such a high burn out!

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The policy in our facility is that patients on blood transfusion need the RN to do the vitals. They need to be going in there to check on the patient anyway, and they can then assess the vitals and the patient.

Sorry you had a bad day.

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The policy in our facility is that patients on blood transfusion need the RN to do the vitals. They need to be going in there to check on the patient anyway, and they can then assess the vitals and the patient.

Sorry you had a bad day.

Patients who are receiving blood at our hospital are on telemetry until the transfusion is done and the RNs take care of all the vitals recording while it's being done, too.

To the OP, do the best you can. We get chewed on by the NSAs if vitals aren't in by a certain time because the PA or attending is on them about vitals. You can only do what you can do in a certain amount of time. You can't do everything they want done and do quality patient care at the same time. There has to be balance.

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Specializes in Short Term/Skilled.

I've experienced this also. In my opinion a good nurse knows a good cna is worth their weight in gold. Most of the time I have had good experiences, but I've worked with a few bad apples. Have you tried asking for help? I know it seems obvious to you, but sometimes, its not obvious to the nurse, especially if said nurse has never worked as a CNA. Sometimes you really do need to speak up and say something. It isn't like that everywhere, I promise.

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I've never heard that the RN has to do the vitals...at the hospital I work at the aides are the ones getting them most of the time. Hmm.

You're right, I did feel like it was obvious that I needed help since I was running up and down the halls constantly in plain view but I definitely could have spoken up. I had never worked with that nurse before and I wasn't sure how he liked to work with the aides. I did ask him a question though later and he was a bit snappy, but I'm assuming that was because he was having a bad day too.

I figured out that the fact that he was, in my opinion, unhelpful and rude about it made me just want to prove him wrong so I ended up trying harder. Weird, usually I'm the type to get hurt and then be resentful and unhelpful...maybe I'm learning things after all. :woot:

Thanks for the support. I'm taking it as a learning experience.

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I'm sympathetic to the argument that RNs have a lot of responsibility and have a hard job and their license is always on the line etc etc, BUT I've gotten a lot less sympathetic when I continually see SOME RNs sitting around talking to each other or texting on their phone when the aides/techs are running around like mad all shift and barely have time to go to the Bathroom. More than a few times I've seen an aide practically run up to a couple nurses at a kiosk, almost breathless from running from one call light to the other in between getting everything else done, and stand there trying to butt into a conversation two oblivious RNs are having about something totally unrelated to work in order to tell them something about a patient, while the RNs totally ignore them and continue talking, wasting more of the aides time.

I should also mention the aforementioned claim that RNs have it so hard because they are ultimately responsible for the patient and will be held liable for anything that goes wrong doesn't hold as much water after seeing so many CNAs and techs fired over the years, and several CNAs investigated and losing their cert, while off the top of my head I can think of maybe one RN fired during the same time. It would seem based on my observation that the techs/CNAs stand a far greater chance of losing their job for mistakes/performance issues, and in the case of CNAs losing their certification, thereby effectively ending their medical career.

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I've never heard that the RN has to do the vitals...at the hospital I work at the aides are the ones getting them most of the time. Hmm.

I guess it depends on the place. The nurses do 100% of transfusion vitals. We're not allowed to do them at all if blood is hanging.

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Ours in theory have to get them if the pt. is on blood transfusion or their vitals are unstable and they need more frequent vitals. Sometimes they do ask us to do the more frequent ones, but we absolutely are not allowed to have anything to do with the blood transfusion vitals. The policy in our hospital is actually that the RNs ave to do at least one set of vitals, per patient, per shift, but that rarely happens.

I don't know that our hospital has that policy, too, but I do know we aren't responsible for vitals on someone who is getting a blood transfusion unless it's to check the monitor to make sure blood pressure is stable and if not, report it to the patient's nurse. Otherwise we get all the vitals with the exception of ER patients.

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Specializes in Short Term/Skilled.
I've never heard that the RN has to do the vitals...at the hospital I work at the aides are the ones getting them most of the time. Hmm.

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I work on a rehab unit and the nurses get all of their own vitals. There are a few reasons for this. The first is the ratio, there are WAY more of them than us. They usually have 5 pts to our 9. The patients are usually max when they get to us, so we have all we can do to get them up, washed, dressed and fed before therapy starts. (Then of course it starts over after that with naps, toileting, etc.) The other, which I completely agree with, is that the nurses want to see the vitals for themselves for med administration. I think I'll feel the same way when I'm a nurse. Can't imagine giving a BP med on the word of someone else.

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All of the nurses I have worked with on my floor, which is ortho, rely on aides to get vitals. I have had them ask me to take it manually as well, and most of them expect you to do it if the numbers are crazy taking it with a dynamap. I assume they would take the vitals themselves again if it decided a med admin, but I always get vitals for everything. They expect us to tell them if a reading is too high or low of course.

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No matter who the team members are, teamwork is important and I always hate seeing one member of the team working hard while the other doesn't do their part. It doesn't have to be nurse versus aide, really. It doesn't matter what your role is as much as it matters that you work with the team to provide the care. I can't think of how many times a potentially horrendous day has been saved by having a hardworking teammate with me. Whether it's two nurses, a nurse and an aide, two aides, etc, if the teamwork isn't there everything can fall apart.

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