Confused about the NPA

[Trampledunderfoot, LPN]

I am a new LPN in Missouri. I have been trying to familiarize myself with the Nurse Practice Act for my state. In school, the instructors said by the time I graduated, I would be 100% sure of what I could and couldn't do. That's how I felt at first, but as I started working as an LPN, it showed me what little I really knew.

Anyway, I tried flipping through the NPA to find the section applicable to LPNs, naively expecting to find an easy to read list of what LPNs can and can't do.

It's not there!

I've been wading through this thing a few pages at a time, most of it seems to be about the board of nursing and student loans, things that are unaplicable to my needs at this time and starts to put me to sleep.

Is there something simple out there that I can trust to have accurate info, but is also a good quick reference? Someone told me to call my old school and ask my instructors, but I am graduated now, and don't want to bother them. I also remember a few big discussions because they were unsure how to answer that sort of question while I was in school. I would worry if I were getting the correct info.

I recently was exposed to G buttons and vents at my new job, both of which I learned little to nothing about at school. I wanted to quickly be able to find out what I could do with these things that was within my scope of practice.

After a week of frantic looking on the internet, and trying to read through the practice act, I still feel in the dark.

Does anyone know where I can go for help? Or does anyone know which part of the practice act might have what I am looking for?

Thank you all.

[KCNURSEGUY]

I'm a LPN - IV cert in MO. To sum it up fast you can't iv push outside of a life saving scenario, we don't hang blood products but can monitor a pt who is receiving blood products, we also are not allowed to access power ports, admin of chemo drugs or medications to neonates or accept neonates as pts. Outside of that it is in our scope, I worked home health and was trained on vents and g buttons. If you have never performed a skill or knowledge about it ask for training and education about the skill. If you have any other questions let me know.

[Trampledunderfoot, LPN]

Hello, thanks for responding. Do you know of any easy to read NPA, or someplace where they have all the LPN parts gathered in one place? It seems that the things pertaining to LPNs are scattered throughout. I thought there would have been an RN section, an LPN section, and so forth.

[KCNURSEGUY]

No I don't we went over the parts that pertains to LPN's in my nursing program

[Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B]

I have seen lots of people with this issue here in pa. How I explain it is like this. The date of pa is not a mother may I state, you won't find a list of what you can do. It's a shall not state. You will find a list of what you shall not do. If you don't see it on the shall not list. You can do it, per the state.

[Trampledunderfoot, LPN]

Thank you, this does help. I wish they could make legal stuff easier to understand. So far I have found a couple places that say things like 'as long as the LPN remains within their scope' but have yet to find the thing that defines the scope.

Some hospitals etc. also have their own policies about what they would like an LPN to do or not do, right?

[Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B]

Law is what you are legally allowed to do per the state and BON. Employers P&P can further restrict practice, but may not ever exceed the law (unless federal employment). Your responsibility as an employee is to follow P&P, your obligation as a nurse is to insure that you never violate the law to do so.