Do I sound like a terrible nursing assistant??

[blondy85]

I am a nursing assistant from the float department. I got floated today to work on the floor for one of the units because their NA called out sick. Everything was going well until I sat down to put in the outputs for the lunches and voids for each patient I was assigned to. Behind me using a computer were 2 nurses- 1 was new so the other nurse was training her. Then I hear them saying "who put the pain level in, it's not her job, override it, it's part of the physical assessment, why is she putting this in etc..it's only her job to put in the inputs, etc" Then the nurses turn to me saying how I'm not supposed to put in the pain level because it's part of their physical assessment. They gave me such an attitude about it, and I told them, we are supposed to ask the pain when we are doing vitals, we put them in and tell the nurses if anyone is having pain. They give me the meanest stare saying it's part of their assessment. They overrided my input. Then the new trainee gives me the dirtiest look a few minutes later. I put the pain level, number, and if it's okay or not. Is this such a bad thing that they had to give me an attitude in front of other colleagues???

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I think the hard thing about working in the float pool is that every floor has their own culture and their own way of doing things. CNAs may do something on one unit (maybe the unit you spend most of your time on or that you trained on) but a different way on another unit. The nurses had no right to be rude to you, but I wouldn't get into an argument over it. If on their floor, CNAs are not supposed to chart a pain assessment, you can always just say something like "I didn't realize that's how you did things on this floor."

[AngelicDarkness]

I'm not 100% on your employer's policies, but a pain assessment can be done by all members of the health care system. I encourage the psws/aids to chart pain assessments, because I chart my own as well (RPN not RN) and the RN can chart their assessment as well. I've seen Dr's chart assessments - would they treat that nurse like they were below them about a pain assessment? Probably not;) lol

I'm sorry you were treated so poorly. That nurse should be spoken to - and I would encourage talking to the supervisory team about it. I'm disgusted to hear she was training when she acted like that - it just encouraged more bad habits and attitude to spread. Nursing can be so dramamtic at times. Team work, not attack your team.