Today I was filling out a survey. Under the occupation section I immediately scanned for "professional"
Boy was I startled to see these first 2 options:
•professional (eg doctor, accountant)
•semi-professional (eg nurse, technician)
ummm what?!?! 😡😡😡 so frustrating to not be viewed as a professional when I have a bachelors degree, a speciality certificate, and 7 years experience not to mention a specialised knowledge and skill set for my PROFESSION of nursing!
I have always considered bedside RNs to be a skilled trade, or highly skilled blue collar worker. Sometimes I feel differently, but then it comes time to punch the time clock and...............
Skilled trade? Do you feel this way because you're held accountable to clock in and out? If so, my heart breaks for you, because clocking in and out should not be the determining factor on whether or not you feel you're a professional.
Additionally, many nursing positions do not require a punch card.
This whole thread is just sad. Nurses clock in and out and therefore are not professionals? Nurses wear scrubs and are therefore not professionals? Nurses cannot fire patients and therefore are not professionals? Seems petty to me. There is more to being a professional than simply being able to hire a patient, wear a skirt, and being salaried.
Unlicensed people have been slowly taking over licensed nursing tasks for some time already. These people might have full awareness as to what the Amiodarone is for, or the importance of sterile technique during a Foley catheter insertion. However, unlicensed workers have been performing tasks that were once within the strict realm of the licensed nurse.
The vast majority of skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities in my area utilize medication aides to administer drugs, including high-risk ones such as Coumadin and Digoxin. In the state where I reside, medication aides are CNAs with a few extra weeks of training. Due to the sheer volume of patients, a head-to-toe assessment is done once weekly.
Some hospitals in my area utilize unlicensed patient care assistants (PCAs) to scan bladders, insert Foley catheters, start IVs, apply CPM machines, insert and remove rectal tubes, administer enteral tube feedings, apply heat and cold, and perform other tasks that only licensed nurses were allowed to do in previous times.
Again, I'll reiterate that these medication aides and PCAs lack the educational preparation to fully understand the implications of what they're doing. However, utilization of these workers does somewhat bolster ISingTheBodyElectric's assertion that a reasonably intelligent person could perform many licensed nursing tasks with only a few weeks of training.
As a postscript, I was a 19-year-old unlicensed direct care worker at a group home for intellectually disabled adults. In addition to the ADLs and cleaning, I also administered drugs such as Haldol and Zyprexa. I didn't know why I was giving these medications, but I was giving them.
We teach lay people to perform IV infusions, complex wound care and med mgmt in one or two sessions. And they perform competently from a task perspective. I've seen many caregivers over the years perform with more meticulous technique than a lot of nurses. We have had some whose caregivers change their suprapubic catheter and wound vac dressings.
My question was meant to be in reference to med surg, I see that I didn't specify though. Aren't the patients on the acute floor pretty high acuity and unstable these days? How long until patients suffered from increased delays in care due to complications not recognized in timely manner by task trained only nurses?
We teach lay people to perform IV infusions, complex wound care and med mgmt in one or two sessions. And they perform competently from a task perspective. I've seen many caregivers over the years perform with more meticulous technique than a lot of nurses. We have had some whose caregivers change their suprapubic catheter and wound vac dressings.
My question was meant to be in reference to med surg, I see that I didn't specify though. Aren't the patients on the acute floor pretty high acuity and unstable these days? How long until patients suffered from increased delays in care due to complications not recognized in timely manner by task trained only nurses?
Med-Surg patients are at an all time high acuity in my opinion. I work at a large Level 1 trauma/teaching hospital, and the complexity of the patients I deal with on a daily basis as a Med/Surg RN is absolutely outrageous. We keep people much longer on the floor than we should (for whatever reason) as opposed to sending them to an ICU. At some points, I am essentially acting as a critical care RN except I don't have a bedside monitor or the ability to run the drips I need. So I'm operating blindly and relying solely on my critical thinking and assessment skills to keep a patient from dying.
That said, I'd love to see someone teach a UAP to do that. Highly doubt that'd be a success.
Not rocket science, but definitely beyond basic math.
Titrating pressors based upon the protocol may be "basic math," but the pre-, intra-, and post-assessments are not. There is more to titrating a drip than simply using an algebraic formula.
I am not going to argue with you about multiplication and division and the advanced-level of the two. Irrespective of that, being about to perform assessments doesn't bestow professional status.
I am not going to argue with you about multiplication and division and the advanced-level of the two. Irrespective of that, being about to perform assessments doesn't bestow professional status.
Okay, so you are the patient. Do you want an MA who was trained to titrate your drip, or an RN?
Totally apart from the casual, colloquial use of the word "professional," there are established, agreed-upon characteristics of a "profession" in the academic and sociological literature, and nursing does not fully meet them (the (only) four traditionally, universally recognized "professions" are medicine, law, the clergy, and academics (college professors, that is). I haven't actually encountered the term "semi-professional" before, but nursing has often been referred to as an "emerging" profession in the sociology literature.
nynursey_
642 Posts
Skilled trade? Do you feel this way because you're held accountable to clock in and out? If so, my heart breaks for you, because clocking in and out should not be the determining factor on whether or not you feel you're a professional.
Additionally, many nursing positions do not require a punch card.
This whole thread is just sad. Nurses clock in and out and therefore are not professionals? Nurses wear scrubs and are therefore not professionals? Nurses cannot fire patients and therefore are not professionals? Seems petty to me. There is more to being a professional than simply being able to hire a patient, wear a skirt, and being salaried.