"I don't want to do bed side nursing"...SAY WHAT!

Nurses General Nursing

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had a couple different nursing students say: "well, i'm going to school so i don't have to do bed side nursing". one even told me she want to work in plastic surg. office, not at the bed side. o.k. , i'm an "old nurse...47 yrs old", but when i went to nursing school in the 80's , we knew we knew we would most likley have to work our way into other areas of nursing after some experience in an acute care facility or some other such place. i hate to sound like i want to eat my young but, a part of me wants to see these new nurses go through the ranks like many of us did. not because i want to see them go through he double thooth picks, but because i feel , taking care of pateints, hands on , learning orginizational skills, pt. asses. , are the best way to learn nursing skills. as a critical care nurse of 27 years, i continue to be amazed at how much i can find out about a pt. during a bath and bed change. we have beds that turn, vents that suction, monitors that alert a critical care team half way across the city, bells, beeps and whistles,,,,what ever happened to good old hands on. i think it is funny that a nursing student thinks if she goes to a plastic surg. office she will only see tummy tucks, face lifts and boob jobs. she's forgetting the big ugly draining wounds , burns, and amputations etc..these office settings see. would love to be a fly on the wall when she takes care of her first pt. with these things and says......"oh my gosh, a plastic surg. takes care of these people too...!" guess i'll go into dermatology.... ha , if you've been around the block you know what awaits her there too. hee heee....but i swear i don't like to eat my young !:lol2: :rotfl: :clown: :lol2: :lol2: :uhoh3:

Marie LPN Gee, if LPNs aren't nurses, then just WHAT does the N in LPN, stand for then?? :rolleyes:

Maybe that poster was joking??????? I'm a new RN & when I started work I asked to be oriented by the best nurse they had. The DON assinged me to an LPN that has been with the company for 8 yrs....A great NURSE!

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Gee, if LPNs aren't nurses, then just WHAT does the N in LPN, stand for then?? :rolleyes:

Ever heard of the NCLEX-PN? The N in PN stand for 'nurse' as well.

I thought that "N" for NCLEX-PN stood for nurse as well...maybe she thinks it meant 'nuts'?? I dunno...:uhoh3:

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Marie LPN Gee, if LPNs aren't nurses, then just WHAT does the N in LPN, stand for then?? :rolleyes:

Maybe that poster was joking??????? I'm a new RN & when I started work I asked to be oriented by the best nurse they had. The DON assinged me to an LPN that has been with the company for 8 yrs....A great NURSE!

It was quite obvious the person that posted what i responded to was not joking.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
It was quite obvious the person that posted what i responded to was not joking.

It is interesting to me that the person that spoke against LPNs being nurses has not posted since, isn't it?:lol2:

Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
Gee, if LPNs aren't nurses, then just WHAT does the N in LPN, stand for then?? :rolleyes:

Ever heard of the NCLEX-PN? The N in PN stand for 'nurse' as well.

Before stating what I was taught in Nursing school, please understand that I respect my fellow LPNs/CAs/NAs/HHAs/Techs. I learn a great deal from then and believe that they do a valuable and necessary job.

That said, both Nursing Schools that I have dealt with, have SPECIFICALLY designated that LPNs/LVNS are not "nurses", but specifically "practical nurses" (the practical/vocational must always be specified as they were not "full" nurses). Just as CNAs are not nurses but aides.

There are many schools that teach this. One does not have to like it nor do I respect my team mates less, because of that....but that is taught in many schools. It does not keep me from respect them, learning from them...much as med students and interns learn much of their profession from nurses.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Specializes in Tele, ICU, ER.

Actually had a boss once who emailed the nursing staff beginning with the salutation" "Dear nurses and LPNs". Heck, I was offended for the LPNs on our staff. Sheesh!

And this wasn't very long ago!

I am a first year student as well, and a licensed esthetician. I am fascinated by plastic surgery and intend to work in that field as an RN. Plastic surgery is no less altruistic than other fields, but there is so much stigma to simply declaring that I know the specialty that interests me most and that I look forward to working in a private office practice rather than a hospital. :)

FYI-- There are other roles in nursing other than bedside care. It is sad that most nurses wont consider any other position other than "bedside" "real" nursing. It is upsetting.. some nurses can be so harsh and narrow minded.

If everyone wanted to work bedside then there would be nobody to fill all of the other nursing positions--think about the patients for once! Everyone needs care and it may be in a place OTHER than the hospital setting!

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

In Aust you won't get a position anywhere as a nurse unless you have at least 12 months of critical care/med/surg experience. It is not a matter of being judgemental, it is the reality of life sometimes that you have to confront.

I think at times some people who go into nursing have this wonderful, dreamy ideal that they will do as little as is required as possible to get their degree/diploma (whatever it is in the US), then float into a wonderfully quiet doctor's office, where you see smiling children all day and pleasant adults, where you give a few vaccines, tap some info into the computer, no-one will ever be angry again, you will not have to manage your time, your feet wil never hurt, you always go home on time and you will be eternally young and life will be just dandy!

I think some new people need to grow up a bit, and look at the quite often harsh reality of life. Bedside nursing is not all stress, it can be pleasant depending upon where you work and what area of nursing you get into. But as the soldiers say, you got to go into the trenches first to get higher up later on.

Where's that tough apple-pie American spirit we're always hearing about on the news gone to?

Specializes in M/S, Travel Nursing, Pulmonary.

A friend of my mother's from church was going through nursing school and realized she made a big mistake. She wanted NOTHING to do with bedside nursing and made it clear she would not be doing it after graduation. Sounded odd to me, but she finshed school. I wondered why? What was the point.

She went straight into case management and loves it. Does fine. Works M-F days, only convers some of the holidays and has no complaints about the pay.

So, I guess skipping pt. care is not an impossible career path, but I don't think everyone can do it. Only so many "nursing jobs" that require no nursing out there.

Specializes in M/S, Travel Nursing, Pulmonary.
FYI-- There are other roles in nursing other than bedside care. It is sad that most nurses wont consider any other position other than "bedside" "real" nursing. It is upsetting.. some nurses can be so harsh and narrow minded.

If everyone wanted to work bedside then there would be nobody to fill all of the other nursing positions--think about the patients for once! Everyone needs care and it may be in a place OTHER than the hospital setting!

See, I agree with the view that if its not bedside with a pt. its not nursing. Thats the point of calling it "nursing".......you NURSE people. You don't nurse paperwork.

Its like this: Sports stars are often called upon to do public speaking. Their stardom and often their personality makes them great for it. Nothing wrong with having a little chat with local highschool kids to stay off drugs while you are in the lime light. So, the "Football player" fills the role of public/motivational speaker for a day. They are in that position because they are football players etc etc. While they are are standing in front of the class speaking, they are not actively "playing football" while doing this even though they are a football player. They are a public speaker and they are speaking.

Same thing with nurses and "the other roles". Are they nurses.......yes. Are they actively nursing...........nah. They are nurses doing "other roles" as you call it. I call it "working outside of nursing" but eh tomato/tomoto.

Same thing with nurses and "the other roles". Are they nurses.......yes. Are they actively nursing...........nah. They are nurses doing "other roles" as you call it. I call it "working outside of nursing" but eh tomato/tomoto.

Yep, that's how I tend to see it as well. Similarly, a nurse manager is a nurse who in their role as a manager is practicing management, not nursing. A nurse researcher is not practicing nursing when that they "put that hat on". A nurse case manager is practicing case management much of the time. I'd go so far as to suggest that much of what *some* "advanced practice nurses" do isn't precisely nursing practice.

Some roles can be best served by someone with a background in nursing and something else (nursing and psychology, nursing and public health, nursing and nutrition, etc). A school nurse is likely going to be providing more than nursing care. They are probably also going to be providing basic first aid and preventive health measures. A public health nurse is likely going to be providing more than nursing care. They may also be providing some services that would parallel that of a social worker.

Going the other direction, that supports the idea that many tasks performed by nurses are not necessarily "nursing"... things like phlebotomy, taking ECGs, etc. Can nurses do them? Do nurses do them? Absolutely! And so can physicians (just usually don't) and so can adequately trained non-nurses (very common).

I tend towards a 'conservative' definition of nursing practice because if we broaden the definition of nursing practice to include all of the things that nurses *do* do in some roles, just about everything under the sun (health education, anesthesia administration, case management, prescribing medication) would qualify as nursing practice and then the term "practice nursing" becomes meaningless.

By limiting the definition of what "nursing" is however, does not mean that I believe that nurses can't or shouldn't have other responsibilities. I believe that many nurses are very well suited for many responsibilities beyond and in collaboration with their nursing practice.

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