Attention office nurses

[iloveofficenursing]

I work in an office with an Internal medicine doctor. He recently hired a lady who says she is a medical assistant, but cannot produce a certificate. She claims that she has been doing this for so many years that she just became a medical assistant and was not required to have a certificate. Anyways, she was hired by the doctor I work for and he never did a background check. Since she has been hired, she does everything that the rest of the us nurses do, injections included. This bothers me. When I questioned the doc. about it, he basically said that He can train anyone to do anything he wants in his office as long as the are under his supervision. Does anyone know anything about this.

Why would a doctor take a chance like this by not hiring a licesensed or regisitered nurse or a medical assistant?

Also, aren't medical assistants certified in tennessee. I know that they do have a 6 month program here.

[Little Panda RN, ASN, RN]

Not all Medical Assistants become certified. This is the way it used to be, but now most employers want them to be certified through the AAMA. She will not have a certificate if she is not certifed, but she should be able to produce a diploma from where she went to school. Unless of course she is much older and was trained on the job as it once was.

[KnoxWarEagle]

It's his office and the liability falls on him. Good luck. It makes for an uncomfortable situation.

[Mommy TeleRN, RN]

I wonder about this type of thing too. I work in a hospital and am allowed to do VERY little. I can DC stuff and that's about it as far as hands on. My understanding is this is by state law.

A fellow student went to work at a doctors office. They have no nurses..only like EMT/Paramedics work in the office. She is doing injections and stuff.

Husband went to a local family doc and had a question about a med. He called back up there and asked for the doc or a nurse. Got a family friend..which shocked him. Family friend said "Oh I do nursing up here" No he's NOT a nurse. He's not licensed.

Seems this doctor office biz is pretty gray.

[lindseylpn]

I worked for a drs. office and was replaced by an EMT, so they wouldn't have to pay a nurse. I also went to school with a girl who flunked out of the nursing program twice but works at this same drs. office doing all the same things as a nurse. I think some drs. offices are now hiring unlicensed people or people that aren't nurses just because they want to pay them less.

[WANTAFUNJOB]

I thought that perhaps all of this had changed by now but I see that it has not. This is what prompted me to go to nursing school. I was a young mother, bright, interested and in need of work. The physician's office that I worked in trained me to do a lot of things particular to their practice. Most of what I learned was from another woman who was also unlicenced and worked in the office. I was taking x-ray's, checking lab, getting cath ua's, and whatever else that they could teach me. I was poorly payed and that is what prompted me to go to nursing school. It was back in the 70's you were required to wear a white nursing dress and white stockings, the Dr. referred to you as his nurse. While I attended nursing school I learned a lot about the common errors that I was making on a daily basis. I was young, ignorant, and doing my best and what I thought was is the best interest of the patients. - OOPS!

There is a lot to be said about you get what you pay for! You would think that an M.D. would realize......CHEEP -CHEEp[[[cheep

[DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN]

Back 30 years ago I was an LPN in Nashville working in a doctors office and we had two medical assistants who were trained on the job. They were pretty darn cocky. "we make as much as you do and didn't have to go to school, we do everything you do". One day we had a young child in the office who was vomiting. The doctor ordered 6.25mg of phenergan IM. We had multi-dose bottlles of phenergan back then and the assistant miscalculated the dose and ended up giving 62.5mg of phenergan IM. The child nearly died. She quit that day and the other quit the next day. They realized that they truely had no business doing what they had been doing. I stayed there 5 years. From that day on the doctor only hired LPN's.