Do you encounter attitudes from techs?

Nurses General Nursing

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The majority of the techs I work with are wonderful. There are two, however, who seem ****** if they have to do anything for the patient - especially help with toileting. I don't always have time to do my job and their job, too. I don't know how to address this in a constructive way without ticking everyone off. Thoughts?

Specializes in Med/Surg, Dialysis.

Yes, attitudes from techs can be stressfull especially when your own plate is so full it's over flowing. I have had to change my delegation speach for situations such as toileting patients. I'll start w/ "When you have a chance, would you..." If I get a look or back talk, I'll follow it w/; "It is after all, the patient who we are here for. What if this patient was your family member? I know you would want the best for them, do what you would do for your family."

It also helps having a great values statement from your institution. My hospital is a Catholic institution, so our values statement goes along the line of "treating our patients as if touched by Jesus". :twocents:

I have the same issue with about half of the techs...especially the ones that have been techs for years and plan on doing it the rest of their lives. I think they see me as a new nurse and maybe a threat...I don't know. But the fact is, I am new and I need extra help with almost anything and everything and if that means I need a second to sit down and relax and/or chart, then I will hit the call button and get the tech. I don't think they really see the stress nurses go through, especially new ones goin through that dreaded first year.

Specializes in ICU.

I guess the big question to me is are they working or sitting? I remember being a very hard-working (burnt-out) tech. I'd be an hour behind on vitals and have one bath of 9 done at 12:30 and be asked to leave the floor to monitor telemetry with a pt going for testing for an hour. I'm sure my frustration showed at times. I wasn't upset with nurse, but with the situation. I was near the breaking point at those times. If that's the case, try giving a list of items at the beginning of the day if possible, and let the CNA work the tasks into her/his routine. That gives them back some control over the situation, which might help their attitude. Try the "when you have time" approach too, that way they aren't stressed out about trying to get six different things all done *right now*. Agreed that doesn't work when a pt is asking to be toileted, but maybe it can help with other tasks.

If they are just being lazy, I unfortunately have less advice to give. I'm not the best at confronting people about their work habits either. Maybe I can get some advice here too, LOL. The one thing I do that may help is to state, "I need you to take Mrs. X to the toilet, please. I would do it, but I need to do A, B, & C now. Thank you." That kind of deflects the retort that implies, "Why can't you do it?"

Specializes in Post Anesthesia.
Hmmm....

Let's see, a tech costs the hospital less money....I think it is silly to pay a well-educated staff RN $25 -45 (wherever you live...) per hour to toilet someone! Yes, I know that historically this was part of a nurses job, but that started back when nuns were nurses and learned via OJT and they didn't have the responsibilities that nurses do today. It is fiscally irresponsible not to have techs....or even worse...it is far more fiscally irresponsible to have an RN doing a techs job while both are being paid! :icon_roll

Be careful what you ask for. The hospital can staff a floor that should be covered with 4 RNs with 1-2 and cut the costs by sending a couple of techs. I end up running up and down the floor all night passing pills and "delegating" tasks to the techs who don't seem to be able to hear in the tonal range of our nurse call lights. Assessments are haphazard at best, and I can't develop any kind of relationship with my patients. I just push drugs and call doctors. No thanks. When I do a bath I'm assessing skin, listening to lungs, evaluating circulation, doing discharge teaching, providing reassurance, assessing mentation.... When a tech does a bath they are doing a bath. My patients in acute care deserve more.

Specializes in Medsurg, Homecare, Infusion, Psych/Detox.

:yeah: BradleyRN

I could'nt agree with you more.

Some of these techs envy nurses and feel that we make too much money. I left medsurg because of the techs on the unit. First of all they would always be going on their breaks just when you need them to do something. Also if they worked with a nurse who help them wash patients, then when they call you to assist them and you tell them to get another tech because you are busy, they have a problem. I wrote many techs up after getting nowhere with the "kill them with niceness" approach. Also they had a different union so that was a problem to. Once i asked a tech to take the pts vitals, she replied, "but the nurse can do that to." I was stressed going to work dealing with them, management was reluctant to take action. Those techs never clocked out late, yet I was lucky to leave at 8am when my shift ended at 7:15 am. I had to quit, it was too much to deal with.

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

Thank goodness I don't have that problem on my new floor. (My problem on my new floor is that I only have a tech's assistance about half of the time, so this is a moot point! But when I have a tech's help on this floor, it is good help, and if they're not helping me, it's because they're busy!)

On my old floor, the vast majority of the PCTs I worked with were wonderful. We nurses had problems with one specific tech. I think she seriously believed that working straight midnights would mean that she could sleep at work. She didn't realize when she took the job, I suppose, that techs on midnights had twice the patient load and half the nurses.

Anyway, she hated it when nurses wouldn't "help" her. For example, I tended to empty my own foleys and drains and NG Tube cannisters because I wanted to see the quality of the output myself. That made her very happy, and she would say "Lolita and Salome don't help me like that! I don't like working with them!" (Lolita and Salome were, by the way, two of the most helpful, selfless, resourceful nurses I have ever known). I explained to her that I wasn't doing it to help her, I was doing it to help my assessment. She didn't care for that answer.

Another time, she yelled at me for filling out the PCT part of the flow sheet because I didn't document that I had turned every patient every two hours. I told her that only patients with Braden Risk Scores less than nineteen needed turn schedules, and she said, "no, you have to at least put which side they're laying on every two hours. I'm not trying to be rude, but you didn't do it right." I told her to go in the breakroom and read the helpful printout describing turn schedules, how they should be documented and who required them. She refused and I told her to forget about doing the flowsheets that night, that if it was wrong, I would get in trouble because it would be my initials, not hers. Then she told me she had finished them.

I almost (I should have done it) asked her how she could be finished documenting up to 0600 if it was only 0200...how could she know which side the patient was laying on? But I knew she'd add me to the list of nurses she refused to work with, and I didn't want to be left completely without a tech sometimes! (Oh, and she never told you if the patient's vitals weren't within normal limits. I'm going to stop while I'm ahead here, though).

What did I do? I ignored her attitude and worked with her. The times she asked me to give her the chart so that she could document vitals and I was doing chart checks, I refused or handed her the graphic. If she moaned about getting up, I acted like she hadn't. I didn't really solve the problem, I just dealt. And I left that floor so I don't know what became of her. I know if I'd had to work with her much longer, I probably would have snapped.

Specializes in Geriatrics.

so so true. I too worked as a CNA in the hospital and then as a nurse in LTC. It brings me to my knees to realize how many not only don't have a decent work ethic, but really truly don't care...about those who were mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers....they are human beings...and they neglect them without even thinking about it. Thank you for your words...I've gotta find some other way to be a nurse. Not in LTC...I just don't have the stomach for the insensitivity and meanness to our elderly.

After reading some of the replies, I've just gotta say it. When I worked as a Tech, I had the same complaint with some nurses that is being voiced in regards to CNA's. I've also heard Nurse Managers & Charge Nurses make the same comments about their own techs & nurses.

Laziness, rudeness, insubordination, a smart mouth, and an unwillingness to work hard & be a team player are not job-title specific.

Everyone always mentions that they knew many good Techs & a few bad apples. It's the same with nurses. Many many of them love what they do, are kind & helpful to other staff, & work their tails off.

Others think they aren't paid enough to do what they do (just how some techs feel), can be found sitting around while others work (just like some techs), & have some excuse handy when told their patient needs or is asking for something (just like some techs have a ready excuse when a duty of theirs needs performed).

Actually, these complaints are not even specific to the healthcare field. I've worked in the business office of the hospital, as well, and most of the employees there are fine to work with. Others made you wish you worked elsewhere.

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