Ever had folks assume you're the Aide not the Nurse????!!!!

mpccrn, BSN, RN · Sep 7, 2008

i personally don't operate by title. seems to me we're (aides, rn's, lpn's, managers) all there for the same reason.....to take good care of the patients. i do what needs to be done at the time, despite job description. it makes for a better day and all the work gets addressed, thus the patients are being taken care of. :smokin:

bethin · Sep 7, 2008

Ironically, I'm an aide and pt's and their families think I'm their nurse.

Xbox Live Addict · Sep 7, 2008

Due to die-hard sexual-role stereotypes, I've been called "doctor" more times than I can count. I always gently correct the patient though, and have never misrepresented myself as a physician.

MikeyJ, RN · Sep 7, 2008

Due to die-hard sexual-role stereotypes, I've been called "doctor" more times than I can count. I always gently correct the patient though, and have never misrepresented myself as a physician.

Same here! When I worked as a nurse apprentice on the pediatrics floor, I wore hospital scrubs because it was easy and it saved me from buying my own scrubs... well I think that added to the image that I was a "doctor". Every patient thought I was a physician and even a lot of staff thought I was a doctor. And it didn't help that I would always work with a female nurse, so when I walked into a room with my nurse and we were both assessing the patient, the families stereotypes immediately labled me as the doctor. I made sure to correct everyone though.

leslie :-D · Sep 7, 2008

funny...

i've had some that thought i was the patient who happened to escape.:rotfl:

leslie:saint:

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · Sep 7, 2008

I often get called Doctor by the older males....who don't know any better....

I'm always sure to introduce myself the first time I see the patients as their nurse, and correct them any time families make a comment about it.....

It just comes with the territory.

Xbox Live Addict · Sep 7, 2008

As a preamble. I have no disrespect for nurses' aides, since I was one myself what 3 years ago. It's a very difficult and financially unrewarding career (disrespected and belittled).
Lately, I do note, at my new place of work I've been mistaken for being an aide and not an RN. Perhaps since I don't hesitate to help out my people to save time with hygiene duties, with meal trays, with vitals...since our aides are lumped with 11 patients each mind you.
An aside note. I don't like it when a nurse over burdens or should I say monopolizes an aide on our unit with everything under the sun...so that when I make a request it gets placed down to number 9 on a list of 8 requests from that SOB (not short of breath) nurse.
Anyway, getting back to the issue at hand. Do we define nursing as wielding power and not lifting a finger to assist patients and chart away me maties. Or do we define it as making the care of our patient's swift and let charting go by the wayside. I hate overtime, please don't get me wrong.
I hate when an aide promises to do something and doesn't deliver. So I find I'm having to follow up with her/him. I don't like being someone's parent. I have patient kiddies to look out for.
I also hate it when I feel picked on by the charge nurse as I'm charting. Get this, answer this call light, where did so and so put this, do you know or could you find so and so....etc etc etc. Sheeeessssh!:argue::argue::argue::sniff:

I've been there too. I have my own stuff to do, stuff which I can't delegate off to an aide or anyone else. But since I can't find the aide, I have to do "their" job. You just can't leave a patient in soiled linens or let them suffer until you can find the aide to help them to the toilet. There are plenty of aides that are worth their weight in platinum, but the weak ones make more work for everyone. They are there to perform tasks the State says they are qualified to do (like meal assistance, bathing, toileting, and yes, peri-care) , so the licensed nurse can peform those tasks the State says only a licensed nurse is qualified to do, like nursing assessments, meds, treatments, documentation, etc.

It's one thing if the aides are swamped, either due to unusually sick patients or short-staffing. However, shirking makes me really angry.

Xbox Live Addict · Sep 7, 2008

funny...
i've had some that thought i was the patient who happened to escape.:rotfl:
leslie:saint:

Hmmm...

And yes, that reminds me of clinicals at the state psychiatric hospital. We were told NOT to wear clinical uniforms there - casual dress only. Though we had our school ID badges, some of us were worried that the staff wouldn't release us at the end of the clinical day...:chuckle

Thornbird · Sep 7, 2008

It's pretty common for patients and families to be unsure who's who of all the people they see. It's more common for them to think the aide is a nurse. As long as nobody is actually mis-representing themself or acting/dressing in a manner that leads folks to think they're something they're not, don't let it get to you. Wear a nametag prominently, people pay more attention to those than the little ID badges most hospitals give these days. If the charge nurse is disrespecting you, speak up, you have your own work to do. If you treat your aides well, as it sounds like you are, they'll make your patients their priority on their own. It gets frsutrating when it seems everyone has "disappeared" but it happens. Respectfully let the aides know that you need to know where they are and when they go to break. Try to remind them kindly if they forgot to do something they said they would.

Xbox Live Addict · Sep 7, 2008

It's pretty common for patients and families to be unsure who's who of all the people they see. It's more common for them to think the aide is a nurse. As long as nobody is actually mis-representing themself or acting/dressing in a manner that leads folks to think they're something they're not, don't let it get to you. Wear a nametag prominently, people pay more attention to those than the little ID badges most hospitals give these days. If the charge nurse is disrespecting you, speak up, you have your own work to do. If you treat your aides well, as it sounds like you are, they'll make your patients their priority on their own. It gets frsutrating when it seems everyone has "disappeared" but it happens. Respectfully let the aides know that you need to know where they are and when they go to break. Try to remind them kindly if they forgot to do something they said they would.

A friend of mine who's been a nurse for 30 years says that much of this is because nurses don't have their own distinctive white uniforms and caps anymore (this is a man, BTW). Physicians have their lab coats with their name and specialty embroidered on the breast, and business staff wears business casual, but all of the floor staff - the nurses,, RT, PT, OT, ST, aides, phlebs, lab staff, housekeeping, and food-service - are required to wear v-neck scrubs now. Since nurses don't visually stand out in any particular way, it's hard to tell who or what does what to who or what anymore, unless you're willing to squint at a name-badge for a few minutes.

Virgo_RN, BSN, RN · Sep 7, 2008

Yes, I have found that a lot of patients are ignorant about the different personnel and roles in the hospital unit. That is why, when I was an aide, I made a point, when I went into each patient room and changed the RN and CNA names on the whiteboard, to introduce myself, state my role, and let them know what kinds of things I was responsible for. I would then ask them if there was anything they needed at the time. I do not see most aides doing this, so that by the time I, the nurse, goes in to the room to do my initial assessment, the patient is asking for water because their pitcher is dry and has been for hours, a warm blanket because they've been shivering for hours, or to go to the bathroom because they've been holding it for a long time, because they didn't want to put on the call light and be a "bother", and they didn't think to ask the aide when the aide was just there five minutes ago, and the aide did not ask or offer. The patient just assumes that the nurse does everything.

This is a peeve of mine. Aides need to speak up and introduce themselves, and take a little pride in what they do and how they help the patients.

Just last night, I overheard a patient's visitor say "Well, if you're thirsty, you should call your nurse and ask her for something to drink.". I was thinking to myself "No, you should put on the call light and ask the aide when they come in to answer it, because your nurse is busy checking off your three hundred zillion medications and reading the doctor's progress notes in preparation for going in there to administer your IV antibiotics and your regularly scheduled medications.".

For the most part, I just do most everything for my patients since it's easier to do that than to track down an aide for something little like a snack or some water. I think this may contribute to the patients' perceptions that the nurses are responsible for these things. But I'll admit, that last night, I had had it. I was swamped, I had low blood sugar, and I was being pulled in five different directions (five patients all with their own needs), so I called the CNA on her phone to ask her to bring a pitcher of water into the room that I was in (the patient was having chest pain and I was giving nitro and monitoring his response). The patient had been there for two hours and still had no ice water. I would have just gotten the water myself, but I was ticked off because this is something the aide should have done on initial admission, and I'm tired of it not getting done. I'm tired of running into a room just to give some pills really quick only to find they have no water, so I have to log back out of the computer, put the pills back in the drawer, go down the hall to the pantry, find a pitcher, fill it up, go back to the room, log onto the computer, pull out the meds.......

Anyway. I didn't mean to get off on a tangent. I'd agree with the other above poster that it seems to me that CNAs are more frequently mistaken for nurses than the other way around, and I think it's because a lot of people don't know that CNAs exist or what it is they do. At least, that is what I found to be the case when I was a CNA. That is why I think they need to introduce themselves and make patients aware. Take a little initiative! Be proud of what you do!!!