I am currently enrolled in a course to complete my cna. I will work as a cna for a few years while saving up to get my lpn. I don't plan on getting my rn. Will I be okay in the future? There's so much talk of lpn's being phased out. Right now, I am tired of school. I have a bachelor's degree in a subject that hasn't helped me secure a job. I just want to work at something interesting, make a liveable salary, and relax. Lpn with no intention of getting rn. I may change my mind later but right now this is what I want to do.
Also, I will need to work once I have enough money to pay for my lpn program. Can you work part time as a cna while attending school. How many hours do they offer part time cnas usually.
For as long as I can remember there has been talk of phasing out LPN's - I always thought that would never happen, but times have changed in the last 5 years. The areas of nursing that use LPN's has definitely narrowed. The local hospital in my area relocated all of their LPN's to the LTC facilities and Dr's office jobs - some had been at the hospital for 3 decades. My advice to someone looking at nursing school today would be to go for the RN. I can't even believe I said that - times have changed.
Does your state have a patient/nurse ratio law? If not, how is it legal to do this? I don't think LPN's will be included in the nurse/patient ratio battle will they?
Also, the more LPN's that are removed from acute care, ICU etc, the easier the organizing will be when the time comes...and it will come. I just urge all RN's to pay attention to what's going on. Unions can be a good thing or a very bad thing!
Specializes in med surg, psych, corrections, rehab.
I assume they replaced the LPN's with RN's. I have noticed some hospitals here in Maine use LPN's under the title "medical assistant", but I don't know the details of their job description - I assume they cannot refer to themselves as a nurse in that position - in the ads for those jobs the qualifications are described as someone with "LPN experience" - number of times around the block and ego prevent me from checking into those positions! Also Maine has med techs which seem to be used pretty heavily in LTC and corrections - I don't know if they're used in the hospitals - I've only been in this state a few yrs. It's an employers market here right now, not a lot of jobs of any kind. I can't remember a time when there wasn't always lots of RN and LPN jobs available - things have changed.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Does your state have a patient/nurse ratio law? If not, how is it legal to do this? I don't think LPN's will be included in the nurse/patient ratio battle will they?
Why wouldn't they be?
Background On A.B. 394
A.B. 394 directs the California Department of Health Services (DHS) to establish "minimum, specific, and numerical licensed nurse-to-patient ratios by license nurse classification and by hospital unit" for inpatient units in acute care hospitals. Licensed nurses include both RNs and licensed vocational nurses (LVNs, called licensed practical nurses, or LPNs, in other states). Draft nurse-to-patient ratios were announced in January 2002 and will undergo an extensive review and comment process required under California law.
Also, the more LPN's that are removed from acute care, ICU etc, the easier the organizing will be when the time comes...and it will come. I just urge all RN's to pay attention to what's going on. Unions can be a good thing or a very bad thing!
Just as soon as we can toss all the deadwood around here things will be wonderful!
That rosy scenario will not happen. If you go to an all RN workforce, the BSN debate will rage on. The big power enchiladas who lobby on nursing issues are extremely invested in the BSN only workforce, so RNs will just argue with each other when those LPNs "are removed from their job".
People (not only you) continue to confuse law with policy and procedure. You can't educate. You can't assess. You can't admit. You can't start an IV. You can't give telephone advice. Wrong wrong wrong. LVNs in LTC settings do all of that. LVNs working in home health do that. Just because LVNs are becoming scarce doesn't mean it isn't done. Just because you've noticed fewer LPNs in the cafeteria doesn't mean they don't work someplace else.
The point I continually hear being made is that nurses will be in huge demand when the Baby Boomers retire. And where will they most likely be retiring to at some point? Those places where LVNs are used most these days! :)
Specializes in med surg, psych, corrections, rehab.
Nurse156, what you say is true. To me the very definition of nursing practice is a process of assessment and response - when it first became "policy" with nursing boards that LPN's don't assess I thought that seemed ridiculous. All day long I assessed and responded - and still do - that's the job!
Realisitically speaking, no LPNs won't be phased out.
What is more realistic is the phasing out of LPNs in a wide variety of job settings.
I started in 1993 as a LPN and my job variety has dwindled to LTC, clinics or very limited responsibilities in community health.
Hospitals, acute care and rehab step down have stopped using LPNs here.
I don't think LTC could run without the use of LPNs.
What is now being proposed and is part of the healthcare overhaul is for
80% of active nurses to be at the BSN level of education with the remaining 20% as MSN, PhD, NP or 'other'. The proposed year to meet this goal is 2020.
I don't see it happening that quick but the push is there for this goal.
But I remember some instructors warning us that LPNs could face a phase out, simply because for years this has been a topic and has yet to go away. In 1992-93.
Just think about this.. almost all the nursing done in LTC is done by the lpn and cna and there are 60 million people going over the age of 65 in the next 30 years..Your job is secure unless medicare and medicaid is taken away...
I was surprised to read that I no longer work at Kaiser through this post. It's true that some positions have changed and have not seen the same levels of opportunity once experienced by LVN's but I just finished orienting three new LVN's to our dept. I also want to thank the post that clarified the nurse/patient ratios ie: licensed nurse it does not say RN only anywhere in the bill/law.
The ANA doesn't make law. State legislators make law regarding both LPN's or RN's.
Most states, like the US Govt, have some form of constitution and amendments that acknowledge certain unalienable rights. Most states have laws and precedents that allow a person to work in their chosen trade without interference. Unless there is evidence to prove that LPNs are a danger or threat to the public at large, even the state legislators cannot simply "eliminate" a LPN, or their right to work...without some specific, quantifiable evidence, which meets State and Federal constitutionality.
The ANA is just a club, that's it. However they are very powerful. Don't underestimate this gang.
The ANA Magnet Certification organization is moving quickly to rid all hospitals of LPNs. The Magnet, does not even recognize the existence of your LPN license.
For years the ANA has failed to "Phase out" LPNs do to Right-to-Work and other Labor Law precedent. However, the Magnet Certification is strong arming Hospital administrators to either eliminate LPNs in hospitals. Thus far they are doing very well.
To make matters worse, now the ANA is invading long term care facilities to eliminate LPNs. And this must be stopped. If you are a LPN, work in a long term care facility, or whatever the case...watch out. Don't be fooled by this ANA gang or their elitist "Magnet Certification", like a charming snake, this gang will fool you, trick you, and bight you (fire you).
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Warning: this turned into a rant before I knew it would!! :)
. . . The ANA is just a club, that’s it. However they are very powerful. Don’t underestimate this gang.
A very blunt assessment, but even though many friends here on allnurses are pro-ANA, I think you're right. They haven't only harmed LPNs/LVNs with their stubborn insistence on retaining an agenda that alienates LPNs and Associate Degree RNs, they've wasted time, money and action planning that would have been better spent unifying those they look down their noses at. Since 1976 when I started until now, everyone with the word "nurse" on their license has lost ground in respect, pay, benefits and yes, even their vaunted goal to be seen as "professionals" like physicians are. If ever a situation described the phrase "while Rome burned . . . ." it is the stubborn and intractable stalwarts in academia and their sister groups the AACN and the ANA.
The rank and file for the most part reject those two objects of reverence, "the only real nurse is a BSN nurse", and "nursing diagnoses" will garner us respect from our professional colleagues in other disciplines. Those people, if they cared whether or not there was such a thing as a NANDA, would be more likely to agree along with most of the rank and file the whole thing is superfluous at best, and that at least 80% who do know what they are react with ridicule or merely confusion for the remainder who are trying to be polite.
The most common thread title from newer students is "having trouble with this nursing diagnosis" well ... mostly the answers they get are "don't worry you'll never use them" or "nobody I know uses them" or "they are a joke". If a student wisely asks "why can't I just call it bronchitis" instead of impaired air exchange or whatever very rarely can anyone offer an answer that makes sense. Isn't that a waste of time and money?
Personally I think they have harmed us further than that, in this push for nursing only as they see it, graduate new nurses with far less clinical experience than the diploma nurses, which means that hospitals have much longer and more expensive orientation processes than used to be the case. I do think that may have played a part in the recent glut of new grads and the unparallelled reluctance to hire them that we presently see. I've never seen, even in past recessions, such an adamant amount of "New Grad Need Not Apply" messages as we do now.
But instead of some needed introspection about the points of their argument, they've responded to that problem (the one they arguably have some culpability in) by simply saying it doesn't exist. There is too a nursing shortage!! They trot out the same bogus statistics from the same people (hi Peter Beurhaus!) they always get them from, proven to be incorrect in their forecasts 100% of the time, and come back for round 99. Or 199. They send their cadre of media experts out to disemminate the talking points. Yes there is a shortage. Oh, you want to know why nobody will hire you and you graduated over a year ago? Um, it's the economy!!! Yes, that's it! It's "a temporary easing of the shortage" (yep) Oh! The baby boomers! Healthcare reform! Oh wait! OK yeah maybe there isn't a shortage of nurses. But. . . there's a shortage of faculty!! The taxpayers should give our school money for more faculty and that will solve the shortage . .! That shortage we prove by using the same statistics we hoped everyone would forget about last time we were asked. It's crazy.
I once asked someone here who was pitching the all BSN plan how it was determined that all the stated benefits would actually accomplish that goal, or even as simple a concept as whether the average doctor, patient, or allied professional even knows what degree a nurse has, or cares, or has an opinion about whether patient outcomes really are better (as "the club" is constantly saying) without pointing to a single valid study, let alone a repeated study, that proves that point.
freetopayattention
10 Posts
Does your state have a patient/nurse ratio law? If not, how is it legal to do this? I don't think LPN's will be included in the nurse/patient ratio battle will they?
Also, the more LPN's that are removed from acute care, ICU etc, the easier the organizing will be when the time comes...and it will come. I just urge all RN's to pay attention to what's going on. Unions can be a good thing or a very bad thing!