Do any of you know much about these? They keep going on and on about it in my CNA class. I guess the state of North Carolina will be listing the position on the NC Board of Nursing next year. The instructors seem to think that a lot of opportunities and job openings will be avaliable to them.
Learn the skills and information you will need to take the state Med Tech Exam.
Our Med Tech class includes instruction on:
Safe medication administration
Proper infection control
Medical Terminology
Physician orders & transcribing
Medication monitoring techniques
Methods to monitor RX effects/side effects/adverse reactions
Proper storage of medications
Proper documentation procedures
Reference/resources in Rx administration.
I'm just wondering is this is something that's being "hyped up". Or if this will be a more common job.
How could you trust someone who has no appropriate background??
What do you mean about back ground, Being a CMA, is still going to school and learning, I am a CNA right this second and that doesnt make me unapropreaite, these are'nt people that they just grab off the street. The way i see it is that The RN's are afraid of someone trying to take their jobs, Being an RN these days is so much paper work that they dont have alot of connection with patients, and people that go into being a CMA still have the connection that they had as a CNA, thats why they want to be a CNA the conection, do you honestly think that hosp,or LTC facilities would have a person passing druggs if they had'nt been schooled for it? But you have your thoughts about it and your minds made up, Just dont close the door to any adjusting.
The way i see it is that The RN's are afraid of someone trying to take their jobs.
I think the nurses are afraid of CMAs killing their pts...or losing their licenses. Quite frankly, I am not afraid of anyone taking my job. If their ever was a CMA in the hospital setting, I would never let them pass meds to my pts. End of story.
Everyone's wearing scrubs nowadays. Medical assistants, CNAs, techs in all areas, now "med techs" too. Patients don't understand these differences and how could they be expected too. All these people walking in and out of their rooms, all wearing scrubs and badges (sometimes flipped the other way so they don't know who is who). If I was being administered a cardiac drug, insulin or any med of importance whatsoever I would assume that person is a nurse, as I'm sure most people would.
As a new grad nurse, I am always so nervous with every IV med but even with PO drugs that are unfamiliar to me. And that's with all that experience and years of school and vigilant instructors hammering the five rights of med administration into me every time. I obsessively check and recheck, I bring the Pyxis receipts with me into the room (or the MARs), I label each IV push with a sticker stating name of drug, I obsessively check and recheck the drip rate (we hang to gravity on our unit). These patients in my care trust me with their lives. OK, I work on a postpartum unit/women's surgical unit - most patients aren't very ill at all. But still, the longer I am a nurse, the more responsibility I feel to these people.
I have a great connection with my patients - not everyone uses aides, some hospitals have primary care where nurse does everything. I spend lots of times getting to know my patients, that's why I chose to work in this hospital/unit. I am not worried about anyone taking my job. I feel the responsibility of being an RN - I worry enough about the CNAs on staff who don't bother to tell me when someone's blood pressure has dropped to 80/40, when someone's RR has dropped to 8, when someone's foley has only put out 50cc in the last three hours. I am responsible for ALL of the care they provide as well, if they fail to tell me something important and the patient goes bad - it's me who bears the responsibility. I don't want to add med techs to the mix. I'll pass my own meds, thanks.
I think that the bottom line is that the role Medication Techs, who take less time to train and cost less, HURT the profession of nursing and continuity of patient care. It adds yet one more person involved with vulnerable patients.
Instead of looking for ways to solve the real problem, which includes RN ratios, working conditions, poor management, lack of recognition of the importance of the role of the RN, poor salaries, etc, etc, administrators, educators, politicians, or whoever come up with this "great idea" of a way to "lessen the burden" of the nurse by creating CMT's.
Bullcocky.
Nothing ANY nurse says in this thread is meant as an insult toward any CMT. It goes MUCH deeper than that. One could not possibly understand the implications of giving medications to individuals unless your life and livelihood are on the line and you have an extensive understanding of human disease processes and all the accompanying complications and hidden clues. This is all about safety - all the way around.
From what little I know about CMT's, it seems that the work they do could be a threat to an RN's license. Not a threat to their JOB. A threat to their life and livelihood and a threat to safe patient care.
The nursing problems need to be addressed. Period.
Can the CMT's posting in this thread understand at least that? It's not about being "smart enough." It's about the importance of nursing being ignorantly minimized once again.
Shouldn't the profession that this directly effects have a pretty big say in this type of thing?
I have a great connection with my patients - not everyone uses aides, some hospitals have primary care where nurse does everything. I spend lots of times getting to know my patients, that's why I chose to work in this hospital/unit. I am not worried about anyone taking my job. I feel the responsibility of being an RN - I worry enough about the CNAs on staff who don't bother to tell me when someone's blood pressure has dropped to 80/40, when someone's RR has dropped to 8, when someone's foley has only put out 50cc in the last three hours. I am responsible for ALL of the care they provide as well, if they fail to tell me something important and the patient goes bad - it's me who bears the responsibility. I don't want to add med techs to the mix. I'll pass my own meds, thanks.
Absolutely!! And this is one of the reasons I work in ICU where we do primary nursing. My patient, my license.
well thats a personal problem, but that also means you dont trust your team.
No, that would NOT be a personal problem, that would be a career problem.
And, no, i don't trust UAP to do a part of my job. I'd rather do the assessments and give the meds myself, instead of finding out the hard way that a UAP doesn't know what they're doing, and i wind up taking the fall for the problem as well.
Instead of looking for ways to solve the real problem, which includes RN ratios, working conditions, poor management, lack of recognition of the importance of the role of the RN, poor salaries, etc, etc, administrators, educators, politicians, or whoever come up with this "great idea" of a way to "lessen the burden" of the nurse by creating CMT's.
I work right now as a certified medication aide in the state of Texas...and some of the people's comments on here about them are very offensive to me...I dont want to hear how CMA's are bad people and we don't know how to pass medications correctly, or we are going to steal them, or whatever else negative you have to say....So I'm going to stay out of it...all i know is...it doesn't take a brain surgeon to read a MAR correctly and admin. a med....its pretty simple...nurses can make medication errors...
anyways...my take on being a med aide is somewhere in one of those post....but im going to stop now before my blood starts to boil
Do you know however, when not to give a medication??? When it might just be detrimental to the patient??? When to ask that medication doses be changed?? Or a different medication altogether should be ordered?? Why timing of medications is important, do you take vital signs or need to take vital signs before giving some meds?? How to recognize when patients are having reactions to their medications???
I could go on and on also. Medication errors are the single most important error that occurs. Why shouldnt' it be the professional who makes the decisions??
Ive had negative experiences with med techs. I feel the only people who should be administering meds are nurses who've had extensive training. For example, I am a visiting nurse and went to see my patient in the group home for wound care. When I got there, the woman was in the respiratory distress (hx of asthma, multiple meds and prn inhalers) and the med techs did not even recognize she needed a respiratory treatment or a trip to the ER! When I asked to get her albuterol, the med tech barely knew what it was. I had to explain to him what it was and why she needed it. I know this is only one experience and there are no nurses in this group home. At least there should be a nurse overseeing the med techs. Maybe then it would be ok? I dont know...Im a little uncomfortable with this issue!!
Do any of you know much about these? They keep going on and on about it in my CNA class. I guess the state of North Carolina will be listing the position on the NC Board of Nursing next year. The instructors seem to think that a lot of opportunities and job openings will be avaliable to them.
Learn the skills and information you will need to take the state Med Tech
Exam.
Our Med Tech class includes instruction on:
Safe medication administration
Proper infection control
Medical Terminology
Physician orders & transcribing
Medication monitoring techniques
Methods to monitor RX effects/side effects/adverse reactions
Proper storage of medications
Proper documentation procedures
Reference/resources in Rx administration.
I'm just wondering is this is something that's being "hyped up". Or if this will be a more common job.
magenta
15 Posts
well thats a personal problem, but that also means you dont trust your team.