Ok folks, I'm just about ready to lose it and I know it's a little silly..or it may seem petty...but just take my feelings into consideration.
I am SICK to DEATH of SOME Medical Assistants, CNAs, and Respiratory Therapists (etc.) calling themselves NURSES, or allowing themselves to be called nurses...or saying that they are getting their "RN". Are you KIDDING ME?
Before I start, let me begin by saying that I respect ALL health care workers and think you should be proud of what you are doing, going to school for, and what your title is. However, I have LOW tolerance for people who break the law and throw around a professional title/license. It's beyond ignorant and I'm wondering how it can be stopped.
I would NEVER in a million years, call myself a Doctor...or a Nurse Practitioner..because I am NOT one. I did NOT go to school for it. I am a Registered Nurse and PROUD of it. If anyone calls me Doctor, or ANYTHING else, I quickly correct them with a sweet smile on my face.
Examples of what I have heard/seen/witnessed/etc.:
" Can I speak to the nurse?" Medical Assistant" Speaking, How can I help you?"
" So excited for my first day of school, we did injections!" says the medical assisting student..friend asks "OH, nursing program?!"...medical assistant student says "Yep, sure is!".
"Nurse Sarah, when do you finish school?". Sarah says, "In 2 months"...Sarah is in a RESPIRATORY therapy program.
My friend says to me," I went to school to become a nurse and finished, but I decided I prefer Social Work." I ask, "Really, so you're a nurse, where did you go?" Friend replies "Yes, CNA Tech Institute".(fake name) Uhm, that's a well known 6 month CNA school. SERIOUSLY?
"I actually teach the nurses on my unit everything. I know more than them and have more experience.", says the Medical Assistant after I ask them why they are referring to themselves as "Nurse".
I can't even go on to tell you how much more I have witnessed. MANY of this is coming from my friends. I'm going to be REALLY honest with you guys. I am just heated. I worked my BOTTOM off in nursing school. I applied to a program with 600 applicants in line (which is STANDARD) and was accepted into ONE of 20 seats. I killed myself not to be flunked out and passed with an average 3.5 GPA. It was four years of GRUELING work and I feel I have earned the right to refer to myself as a Registered Nurse. I'm very proud of it.
I feel like other health care workers are SERIOUSLY making a JOKE of the nursing field throwing around the title as though we are a dime a dozen. Why can't they be proud of what they do? EACH of those fields is JUST fine..but WHY are you breaking the law and calling yourself a Nurse?
Can you imagine what would happen if I called myself a Doctor? Sorry, but that's ignorant and pathetic. I would NEVER do it. If this thread offends you, then please don't reply. It shouldn't be offensive unless you are one of the few health care workers who live a lie and call yourself a nurse.
How do we address this and stop this? Medical Assistants are the BIGGEST group I have witnessed this by. I have a LOT of respect for them and envy their position. They ENJOY their jobs...but why do SOME (not ALL), throw MY nursing license value around like that by claiming they are a nurse?
What do you do when it's a friend doing this?
What do you do when it's a health care coworker?
I already know what I would do if I was going to a Doctor's office and they did this. That's easy. It's the friend part that is hard. I KNOW it's silly to be upset..but I have never seen so much ignorance. Why did I work hard if someone else can call themselves a nurse and only went to school for 6 months? What did I work for? Other than the obvious paycheck and passion?! ha :)
a dnp is not just a "one year" program, it builds upon and greatly expands the education each nurse has received throughout her nursing school 'career'.
if you already have a certain level of education you can technically get a dnp in one year, certainly, but a dnp, unlike a cna, has years of nursing education at their side. i personally would not choose to take 20 credit hours a semester to try and finish quickly, but my hats off to those who can!
a cna can take a few week course, a dnp has an extensive nursing educational background. many dnp's have 5-7 years of nursing education under their belt. many went 2 years for an associates, then earned their bsn, msn, and finally, their doctorate. there are more expedient ways to earn a dnp, like accelerated programs, but make no mistake, they are fighting and working hard for that accelerated path.
dnp's have years of nursing education, cna's have weeks.(if even that, you can technically challenge the exam in most states..)
i am an lpn student. during the past 2 semesters i have learned an incredible amount of information, but with this education comes the realization that i have so much more to learn. it excites me to consider all of the educational options i have to choose from.
as a side note, i have heard many cna's at my clinic site say "they don't know more than we do, they just pay that extra money to be called "nurse" "
i was a cna p/t for around 8 years before i began nursing school, so i am familiar with cna training. nursing education is very different than cna work, we are not trained, we understand, we see relationships between things most people would not put together.. all of this from an lpn program, and i have more ahead as a bridge for my rn!
i am earning my right to be called nurse once i take the nclex. i respect the title because i understand what it takes to get there..
I don't know how the bash CNA thread turned into a bash DNP thread, lol. Just for the curious, my nursing education went like this: 2 years ADN 2 additional years BSN 2 years MSN all of these were FT. They say some might complete a DNP in 5 semesters, FT. IF they are not working, IF you get speedy IRB approval, no snafus or delays, and IF every facet of your research goes like clockwork. 5 semesters is 2 years if you go all summer. The the fastest one could do it is 2 years. I'm not going FT, so I expect it to take me 8-9 semesters, or three years. At the minimum, a DNP prepared nurse has 8 years of post secondary education (FT). Now, if you don't want a DNP, fine. Don't get one. But as a professional, I anticipate that you would be supportive of your colleagues. As such, I'd expect to see a little respect, and at the minimum, accurate reflection of the facts and no minimizing of others' drive and accomplishments.
Have a simple question for you. Are you a nurse or a nursing student?
I'm a Cna, (never claim to be a nurse) Yes it is a bit unprofessional to call yourself an Rn but as long as they are not doing the tasks of an Rn it is not a huge deal. When I see these type of questions(which is alot), I feel they already know the answer to their question and the intent is to be catty and to bash, it's just like the Asn vs Bsn questions. It makes me very disillusioned towards nursing and it's why I don't plan to continue to Rn after I get my Lpn and instead am going towards my DPT.
"Yes it is a bit unprofessional to call yourself an Rn but as long as they are not doing the tasks of an Rn it is not a huge deal."
Wrong-o. It is ILLEGAL. Not "a bit unprofessional," ILLEGAL. Whether or not a CNA is "doing the tasks" (by which I assume you mean strictly manipulative skills like punching pills out of blister packs, inserting Foley catheters, giving injections, or starting IVs) if a CNA is letting patients think that they are receiving care from a registered nurse (or even an LPN) it is a violation of the nurse practice act and can result in fines or imprisonment. This is because nurses are held to a much higher standard of practice than CNAs, and even if they aren't doing those "tasks," they are assessing and available to the patient in ways a CNA cannot be; presenting oneself as a nurse when one cannot do those things is fraudulent.
If you were in nursing school you would have learned this. If you are resistant to learning it now, you have probably made a wise decision to do something else, and I commend you for it.
Yes I knew it was illegal before nursing school which i'm sure the people who ask these questions do too, like I said before these type of questions are just to be catty which coming from adult women is sad.
I'm a Cna, (never claim to be a nurse) Yes it is a bit unprofessional to call yourself an Rn but as long as they are not doing the tasks of an Rn it is not a huge deal. When I see these type of questions(which is alot), I feel they already know the answer to their question and the intent is to be catty and to bash, it's just like the Asn vs Bsn questions. It makes me very disillusioned towards nursing and it's why I don't plan to continue to Rn after I get my Lpn and instead am going towards my DPT.
Ok. I knew you weren't a nursing student or a nurse for sure! Then I don't expect you to fully understand us nurses or nursing students. Whatever you want to be, bust yourself out like us to earn that title and please come back to me again with your new feelings towards those you call themselves nurses even though they aren't. okay?
As an RN with 20 years of experience, I agree more with Upstate than I do with some of you who are so upset about this. But then again attitudes tend to make me side with the opposition.
Of all the things to get all twisted up about. I understand we all work and have worked hard to get where we are, but man.
Yes, it is illegal for someone who doesn't hold a RN or LPN license to say they are an RN or LPN. But in the real world, it happens all the time. Just do a google search on "Nurse" and "patient death" and I am sure you will find any instances of "Nurse kills patient" reported in the media that it was a CNA or some no-nurse. I even think of the people in my doctor's office as nurses,even though I know they are MAs or CNAs - and I know this because it says so on their name tag.
And as nurses, it is our duty to educate the public about the differences between nurses and non-nurses, not to just go along with what has always been. We need to stand up for and protect our profession.
I am a CNA, and I even know better. I will not refer myself to a nurse. That is something I am going to have to earn, and I look forward to the day I can call myself a nurse. (currently in school). Even when I "graduated" from the Nursing assistant course, my instructor emphasized the importance of not calling ourselves CERTIFIED nursing assistants until we were actually certified. the importance of not claiming a title that is not yours. Now you got me thinking, I'm not even sure who's what at my Dr. office anymore. They never identify themselves as nurse, or MA. I know that one in particular is an MA because she was asking me about nursing school. but like i said, noone identifies their title and we just assume they are the nurse.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Unless you hold a license from your state's BON, you are not a nurse. An MA is not a nurse, and a CNA is not a nurse. That's not saying they can't be valuable components of the medical team, but they simply aren't nurses, and it's fraud to suggest so.
Teaching a nurse how to do a task is not nursing. Professional nursing is composed of far more than tasks.
Just for the curious, my nursing education went like this: 2 years ADN 2 additional years BSN 2 years MSN all of these were FT. They say some might complete a DNP in 5 semesters, FT. IF they are not working, IF you get speedy IRB approval, no snafus or delays, and IF every facet of your research goes like clockwork. 5 semesters is 2 years if you go all summer. The the fastest one could do it is 2 years. I'm not going FT, so I expect it to take me 8-9 semesters, or three years. At the minimum, a DNP prepared nurse has 8 years of post secondary education (FT). Now, if you don't want a DNP, fine. Don't get one. But as a professional, I anticipate that you would be supportive of your colleagues. As such, I'd expect to see a little respect, and at the minimum, accurate reflection of the facts and no minimizing of others' drive and accomplishments.
VioletKaliLPN, LPN
1 Article; 452 Posts
a dnp is not just a "one year" program, it builds upon and greatly expands the education each nurse has received throughout her nursing school 'career'.
if you already have a certain level of education you can technically get a dnp in one year, certainly, but a dnp, unlike a cna, has years of nursing education at their side. i personally would not choose to take 20 credit hours a semester to try and finish quickly, but my hats off to those who can!
a cna can take a few week course, a dnp has an extensive nursing educational background. many dnp's have 5-7 years of nursing education under their belt. many went 2 years for an associates, then earned their bsn, msn, and finally, their doctorate. there are more expedient ways to earn a dnp, like accelerated programs, but make no mistake, they are fighting and working hard for that accelerated path.
dnp's have years of nursing education, cna's have weeks.(if even that, you can technically challenge the exam in most states..)
i am an lpn student. during the past 2 semesters i have learned an incredible amount of information, but with this education comes the realization that i have so much more to learn. it excites me to consider all of the educational options i have to choose from.
as a side note, i have heard many cna's at my clinic site say "they don't know more than we do, they just pay that extra money to be called "nurse" "
i was a cna p/t for around 8 years before i began nursing school, so i am familiar with cna training. nursing education is very different than cna work, we are not trained, we understand, we see relationships between things most people would not put together.. all of this from an lpn program, and i have more ahead as a bridge for my rn!
i am earning my right to be called nurse once i take the nclex. i respect the title because i understand what it takes to get there..