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 :)
I agree with that concept. We are all meeting basic human needs. I have run through the profession, first CNA, LPN and now RN. My only issue is when someone acts out of their scope.
Cheer up guys, they won't take anything from you.it only shows how much they want to be like you. Give them support and encouragement to reach their goals
Cheer up guys, they won't take anything from you.it only shows how much they want to be like you. Give them support and encouragement to reach their goals
If they want to be like "us", they can go through the schooling and get the license.
As a tech, I NEVER called myself the nurse, not did I act like a nurse, even when I was in nursing school.
There are liabilities that come into play, as one PP pointed out that happened...so I don't mind vilifying someone up, but I won't encourage the fraud that some people indulge in.
I have no problem encouraging anyone to reach his or her goals. I have a problem with someone claiming credentials they haven't YET obtained.
Do you suppose physicians are hunky-dory with a college student saying he is a doctor? I mean, after all, if he's taking the pre-med classes.....and WANTS to be a doctor someday, but is working as a CNA now....what's the harm in saying he's a doctor?
Maybe it's because it isn't true, is misleading patients and their family about his qualifications, and perhaps might make the ACTUAL doctor on the case get an earful about "what that nice young doctor who was in here before you" had to say about the prescribed plan of care?
So no, I'm not okay with someone posing as a licensed nurse who is NOT one.
Wha? If you're a nursing ASSISTANT, you're NOT a nurse. I don't know how this line could possibly be blurred to you?
We are all nurses. Some of us may be nursing assistants and some of us may be licensed professional nurses. The nursing assistant who takes responsibility for most, if not all, of a patients basic human needs is most certainly, in my eyes, a nurse. If a patient identifies the nursing assistant as "my nurse" it means that she must be doing something right and that he or she is an asset to the team.
We are all nurses. Some of us may be nursing assistants and some of us may be licensed professional nurses. The nursing assistant who takes responsibility for most, if not all, of a patients basic human needs is most certainly, in my eyes, a nurse. If a patient identifies the nursing assistant as "my nurse" it means that she must be doing something right and that he or she is an asset to the team.
So if I follow your logic than a Physician's Assistant is really a doctor! Cool! Forget NP school I wanna be a doctor I'll go to PA school. SMH!
Food for Thought.... It only takes 6 weeks (or less) to become a Nursing Assistant. But you have to go to Graduate School to become a Physician's Assistant.
I feel as though these job titles only add to the confusion of the public...
I think I get more bothered when the patients do it because it gets confusing. The patient is asking for their nurse, so I go get them, and they're like, "No, not her. The other lady." referring to the tech and I'm like, "She isn't a nurse." The patients don't seem to care, though. I think that's kind of where it should start. The RNs should make it clear to their patients that they are their nurse and that so-and-so is helping them for the day and the CNAs/techs/etcs should back them up and remind the patient that they are assistive personnel, not nurses. Oh wells....
We are all nurses. Some of us may be nursing assistants and some of us may be licensed professional nurses. The nursing assistant who takes responsibility for most, if not all, of a patients basic human needs is most certainly, in my eyes, a nurse. If a patient identifies the nursing assistant as "my nurse" it means that she must be doing something right and that he or she is an asset to the team.
No, I don't quite think it's that. I think it's the patients don't care to know the difference.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
We are all nurses. Some of us may be nursing assistants and some of us may be licensed professional nurses. The nursing assistant who takes responsibility for most, if not all, of a patients basic human needs is most certainly, in my eyes, a nurse. If a patient identifies the nursing assistant as "my nurse" it means that she must be doing something right and that he or she is an asset to the team.
I disagree. While nursing assistants may work in the health field, they lack the education and licensure to be called nurses. And if you research many states' practice acts, you will find they take issue with it as well- and with good reason. A patient identifying someone in scrubs as a nurse may simply be confusion or a nursing assistant may purposefully be misidentifying him/herself, and that is most definitely not okay.
But in they eyes of the law and many boards of nursing, the nursing assistant or MA who calls themselves a nurse is breaking the law.
I had an MA answer the phone saying she was "the nurse." She gave horrible advice which came back on me because I was actually the only nurse in the office. The patient threatened to sue. Who do you think would have ended up being called into court even though it was my day off and I had no knowledge of the incident? The REAL nurse.
The orderly is not a doctor. One would likely not be happy being examined or given advice by an orderly who represented themselves as a doctor. That would land them in prison for practicing medicine without a license.
Specializes in Medical Surgical and step down units.
I am with you on this one!! i hear the same thing where I work. Patient's say "the nurse" told me to do it, and when I explain that it was a CNA or a tech that said that, the patient says, "well it seemed like they know what they are doing". I have to explain that they are not permitted in their chart, except to chart vital signs, bed baths, etc. r/t their job and I, a Registered Nurse with 4 years of education, can review your chart, what the physicians document and therefore am the better one to ask questions of. That is why we have a white board in the patient's room with the NURSES name under nurse and the CNA's name under CNA. I once had a CNA offer a pitcher of water to a patient who was on a fluid restriction, with a sign at their door and above their bed. When asked of the patient why he had the water, his response was the "nurse" gave it to me. I don't know what to do, short of returning to the white uniform and the cap (which I always wear), but I continue to have problems with patients thinking the CNA's are the Nurse. We are stuck and it is a shame. There isn't enough recognition for Nurses as it is, but then to have the patients think that CNA or RT or PT or OT are Nurses, we will never get ahead. I am interested in suggestions too~
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PghRN15
73 Posts
icuRNMaggie
I agree with that concept. We are all meeting basic human needs. I have run through the profession, first CNA, LPN and now RN. My only issue is when someone acts out of their scope.