Another vent about nurse vs aide

Nursing Students CNA/MA

Published

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.

Please allow me to defend (or explain) the other side since they're not here to do it for themselves.

"I just don't understand nurses that are so utterly oblivious to all the work that aides do."

Nurses are able to do everything that an aid can do, and they have. Aids are not always aware of everything that a nurse is responsible for, however. Even as a nursing student, to me, it looked like the aids did all the work. I was so wrong.

"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..."

It sounds like you were pretty busy, so I have to wonder how you knew the nurse was on a personal call for 30 minutes. Also, there are doctors who will HANG UP if they call back and you aren't there immediately. I often "hang out" in the nurses' station and start on my mountains of charting and other paperwork while waiting for a doctor to call back (or just because it has to be done). I may engage in conversation with others while I work, but that doesn't mean I'm not working. Not "sitting around" and getting my desk work done is what will keep me at work hours late. No thank you!

"oh and there's an admit coming in 15 minutes, and you aren't helping..."

What an aid does for a new admit is a very tiny portion of what a nurse does. Trust me, the nurse is stressed out about the admit, too.

"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."

I've cried in the bathroom, too. Especially as a new nurse...

And why assume that people are whispering about you? Maybe they are, but maybe they aren't. Also, you are not there to help "me" out, you are there to help the patients out. Don't let yourself become vindictive, especially towards the wrong people.

Nursing assistants have busy, sometimes horrible days. Try not to assume the nurse is out to get you when it happens, though. Remember that every patient who has to pee or needs vitals needs a ton of other things that you don't have to worry about and may not even know about.

"UGH. Vent much needed."

Ditto! :)

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Specializes in Hospice.

I've been on both sides. Before becoming an RN I worked as a PCA on the same unit I work now, I also thought the nurses were being "lazy", here I am running my fanny off and they are sitting at the nurses station, UGH. They made it look so easy so I decided to go to nursing school. Then I had a reality check. It was not EASY. I was sitting at the nurses station charting and charting and charting. Because if it isn't charted it means it wasn't done. Not only are you charting your assessment, you chart your care plans, your teaching, when you called the doctor, you chart anything that has changed from prior assessment, the charting is endless and I know there are things I should chart that I have forgotten. On top of the charting I have to do something about the blood sugar that is too low or too high, the blood pressure that is way to high, etc...

I was a CNA for 10 years before I became a nurse, I know they work hard, very hard. The CNA makes the difference between a good night and a bad night. Just as a nurse can make the difference in a CNA's shift. I guess what I am trying to say is you don't always see what is happening on the other side. Team work is essential. If you are stressed and need help tell somebody. Do you have a charge nurse, maybe they can help.

Ultimately it is the nurses responsibility whether things get done or not. The RN is responsible for the CNA.

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Sorry for spelling "aid" wrong through my whole post, oops

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Thanks for your insight. I am in nursing school as well and when I am in clinical it is opposite for me, I feel like the nurses are overworked while the aides are sitting around, but at work as an aide it is hard to see things that way when I can't get a break. It doesn't really matter now of course, but the thing that hurt my feelings the most about the whole situation was that the nurse in question went to the charge nurse about something that small (me not giving him blood sugar readings that were already in the computer by the way) without telling me first to correct the problem, and then he was snarky about it later - when I asked him about the report on the admit he told me that he would "give you the information when I get it, that's how this works you know". To me it was disrespectful, if it were me with the problem I would have gone to the person I was having the problem with first as long as I knew it could be handled that way, and here I felt it could have. I tried to step in his shoes and see how maybe he was just having a bad day or stressed or whatever. It was just an overall bad day probably more due to bad communication technique than anything else.

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*****dupilcate post/disregard*******

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RNstudentJ: You seem to be very insightful and open to different points of view.

Very nice, for a change, and I wish you the best.

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

There are lazy people in every profession. There are lazy aides and lazy nurses. One job isn't harder than the other they are just hard in different ways. Until you work both jobs you'll never really get it.

Some nurses truly do refuse to help because they don't concider it their job.. I've seen it. That doest mean every busy nurse is this way. Same goes for aides. I just wish we could focus on the job we need to do and stop worrying about who does what or why someone doesn't help. I've had to learn there is probably a reason and if not. Theres always karma ;)

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Specializes in hospice.

When a busy nurse is charting, no problem. When s/he is shopping travel sites or eBay.....problem. Duh, people, I can see your screen! Of course, so could the charge, and she didn't care. So I guess that shopping for your next vacay and griping at me about tasks that aren't done to care for YOUR patient is totally fine.....

I get that nurses have lots of responsibility and actually are busy with work when they might look like they're not. But if you don't want your aides resenting nurses as a group, you might want to step up and stop egregious BS like what I witnessed in my last job. It got to the point where I was endangering my physical health by continuing to work in that hospital. My churning stomach was going to turn into a bleeding ulcer, so I bailed. I tried addressing it within the unit, with the clinical leadership of the floor....no one gave a crap what I said. I was just an aide a few months out of school. Even though my hours have been cut and I am looking for other jobs (which sucks cuz I like my hospice job) I am so burned from that experience that I hate even the idea of working in a hospital again.

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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.

That's our "policy" too, but the nurses always have the CNA's do them. Like I don't have enough to do without doing frequent vital signs on transfusions. The nurses have to go in there anyway to assess. Or at least they SHOULD be going in there... Grrr

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