LPN Bashing

[kwalker5]

I think the bashing stems from the fact that nursing is so fragmented. What other profession do you know where it's fragmented into 3 distinct categories, yet generalized by the public? When I ask people their profession, they say "I'm a nurse". Yet when probed deeper, you find out that they are an LPN or a CNA. In my own opinion, and if I were king, I would do away with the LPN curriculum, and require all future nurses to be RN, BSNs. Why?? Because when you raise the standards of a profession, you can command more money, and command more respect from the public as they know you went through lengthy formal education as opposed to a one year community college course.

Nurses whine and complain about their salary, lack of support, heavy assignments, etc. But they brought it all on themselves by having incompetent lobbyists and unqualified personnel in Washington, the ANA, and the NLN. Such regulatory boards are primarily run by women. The AMA is run by men. Look at the difference in pay and respect. Wake up, people! Raise the standards of your profession and let the public know we're not just professional butt wipers and glorified baby sitters!

Talk to your local state representative today! Demand new blood in the ANA and NLN! Make a difference in your profession! Go back to school and get your BSN or higher! RAISE THE STANDARDS!

[SmilingBluEyes]

We came purty much full circle with some pretty heated stuff on the LAST thread w/the same title. I have no further comment except like I said before: Respect is needed....how people treat you is often to be compared to a mirror held before you. If you treat others w/disrespect, it will come back to you......it is a natural law. If you are seen as a professional who commands as well as renders others respect, you will get it from those that matter. If not, move on. Complaint, while perhaps therapeutic, won't change things much.

[baseline]

So.....opportunity or crisis.........hmmmmmmmm. I stated in the last thread that in 1973 when I was an LPN this was a very similar debate. It is now 2003....not one thing has changed.

Crisis or opportunity?

[cna on her way]

My opinion on this subject is simply this, if you are satisfied with your job, your title, and your choices on careers, why argue? I am a CNA at present and planning to start LPN school in the fall. I will eventually go back for my RN when time and money will allow it, but I am completely comfortable with the title LPN. I do agree that each level of nursing is more educated, not better or more efficient, just better educated. But the same respect deserves to be given whether I am a housekeeper or a MD. If we allowed ourselves to just respect each other the same way we expect to be respected this wouldn't even be an issue because we would see that each member of the team is important and necessary. As for the post that LPN programs should be done away with, if thats the case you should have to have your masters not your BSN because in that thinking no one would be a good nurse until they have reached the top. And thats just not fisable!!!!!!!!

[jacolaur]

Oh, not again..this subject has come up so often since I graduated from my fully accredited practical nursing school in 1979 I could just yawn...Some of us had no choice in what type of college we could go into, my family was poor as bricks back then. My parents could not afford college tuition for 1 child let alone four. We lived in a very small town, my father worked 2 jobs and my mother took in laundry...I took out a student loan and put myself through the junior college with the intention of making a decent living then going on for my RN. That loan seemed astronomical to me..I was very proud to graduate with an A average...I began working at a wonderful teaching Medical Center, and soon became just as competent as the Nursing Team around me. I never complained when that RN's were in charge at the desk and handing down to me DR.'s orders to d/c IV, change foley, administer stat med's, etc, etc. I was right there bathing, wiping tushies, suctioning trach's, and cleaning up emesis. I again discovered that a lot of the Med students, Residents, and Physicians were calling upon me to ask questions about their patients. They ask me because I could answer them immediately, due to the fact I WAS right there day in and day out hands on with their patients. I was and still am proud to be an LPN. Did I get discouraged and felt a bit used by certain RN's who didn't do their share of the "dirty" work and relied on me to do it, or were to easily using me to carry out the orders as they took them over the phone or out of the chart? You bet! Did I have wonderful RN's and Aides around me that all worked hard and as a unit that made the shift go as smoothly as possible? You bet! I soon found that the only people who cared about the initials behind my name were only RN's. Not the patients and certainly not the Doctors.

I feel that from your post it is the fault of the LPN's that the pay is so low! How can you assume that, maybe you would only be getting an LPN salary if you took us out of the picture..Are you prepared to do all the care that a patient requires and deserves, including the messy jobs! I suppose you blame me too for being the one the handsome Internist asked out 17 years ago and then married. Maybe, only an RN was good enough to marry him. Fortunately, he thought LPN stood for Little Pretty Nurses.

[Brownms46]

:rotfl: jacolaur...that last part was just too funny...:rotfl: Living well is sweet isn't it..:chuckle No matter how you label it!

Great post too!

[Brownms46]

Originally posted by cna on her way

My opinion on this subject is simply this, if you are satisfied with your job, your title, and your choices on careers, why argue? I am a CNA at present and planning to start LPN school in the fall. I will eventually go back for my RN when time and money will allow it, but I am completely comfortable with the title LPN. I do agree that each level of nursing is more educated, not better or more efficient, just better educated. But the same respect deserves to be given whether I am a housekeeper or a MD. If we allowed ourselves to just respect each other the same way we expect to be respected this wouldn't even be an issue because we would see that each member of the team is important and necessary. As for the post that LPN programs should be done away with, if thats the case you should have to have your masters not your BSN because in that thinking no one would be a good nurse until they have reached the top. And thats just not fisable!!!!!!!!

WOW..you rock on with your bad self!

[mattsmom81]

"Too many chiefs and not enough indians".

I fear nursing could easily fall into this kind of trap should the current infatuation with academia continue. In fact many of our hospital facilities suffer from this...I feel the inflated salaries of all our multi level 'manager's are one of the reasons we are chronically short staffed. they vote themselves raises, give us a 'cost of living raise' and we're supposed to be grateful.

Respect for ALL levels of health care is paramount, IMHO, and a good team is worth it's weight in gold to me: a team that includes LPN's, RN's and CNA/PCA's. :)

[hapeewendy]

of course the role of everyone in healthcare is a vital one, we are all life savers and amazing caregivers. I was merely pointing out that the "bashing" If you will most certainly does go both ways and making sweeping generalizationgs about RN's does little ,if anything to help the situation. I dont post here to agree with what everyone else has typed or to be a trouble maker etc , I Post to share my opinions and perspective

and the little eye roll smilie ( as cute as it may be )does nothing to further your plight or gain my sympathy about the LPN profession being bashed.

I work with RPN's who have taught me many many important things , about patients as well as lifes lessons. I dont think that RN's are superior in anyway.It seems like some people on this board however misconstrue and twist what is meant to be pride in the RN professoin into the nasty notion that we all run around thinking we are so much better than everyone else. Anyone who feels as though he or she is being bashed needs to let the person making them feel that way know that it is not appropriate and follow the proper recourse.

rehashing the topic here is clearly of no help.

be proactive in your own practice, do the best you can do everyday on the job,leave with a clear concscience and take no abuse!

I am proud of being an RN, worked damn hard to get here and am happy to be among a wonderful group of people with RN behind their name, even prouder to be a part of an amazing group of people with many different "letters" behind their name but all having an important part in taking care of the needs of the people who need us most.

if youre stuck with the idea that you are being victimized you will always see yourself that way regardless of what is really going on....

[imn2nursing]

:roll jacdaur said it all. And I will say "WHO CARES" the people that is so concerned about the title behind their name need to take a look at why they become nurses in the first place. All of our jobs are important. I became a nurse because I want to help make someone a little more comfortable. I'm not going to ramble. Why can't everyone just get along? God bless all. Rita LPN (with 6 months to be a RN, does the title matter to me? Not at all)

[vemiliob]

"I think the bashing stems from the fact taht nursing is so fragmented".

If you were living in my Country, especially in my Place, the subject of discussion would probably be, 'RN Bashing', etc.

In 1965 began the massive production of LP Nurses as a RN's Shortage solution, after having the first Argentinean University Nursing School, open during the second world ware and directed by a US Army Nurse (then closed and reopened). After reaching a pretty high wordly-recognized-standard, began what we could call "The dark night of the Argentinean Nursing".

You have no idea, what a funny experience is, to work in a five-hundred-nurse Hospital with no more than ten RNs. Where everybody targets you with jealousy, resentfulness and gossip. Where even your boss is an LNP. Where 90% of people passed through primary school only. Where the general concept of Nursing is lowered to the same Standard, because whether physicians or patients consider just ONE NURSING....And believe me, it is not the same and we DO not DO the same jobe! Our epidemiological statistics prove it.

In fact, when the Low gets power it becomes a kind of Black Star, pulling everything down into its center. Everybody in Argentinean Nursing is under the line of poverty (except few lucky), as a consecuence of that massive LPN production combined with a non-regulated-nursing Law.

And thus nowadays nobody will consider to be a healthy option to enter in a five-to-eight-year career to become another poor (a Dr. in Nursing Science perhaps), therefore the LPN reproduction continues endelessly.

Ending my comment, I invite you all to make a profit of OUR mistakes, learning from then instead of criticize them.

If one looks with a wide focus, one will always see a close relation between EDUCATION and Justice, Communication, Human Values, Health and Freedom.

You see... once upon the time, as in the Nazi Germany, Argentina had its Huge Burn of Books... unfortunately we were not an old enough Nation to have deep cultural values as our German Brothers to free ourselves from the stigma that such a "popular-political stupidity" left on our culture.

The whole must improve to allow the part improving. It cannot be other way!

"Let's everybody try to become a Doctor in N. and see what happens".

Sure it never can be worst....

[nurs4kids]

Originally posted by hapeewendy

of course the role of everyone in healthcare is a vital one, we are all life savers and amazing caregivers. I was merely pointing out that the "bashing" If you will most certainly does go both ways and making sweeping generalizationgs about RN's does little ,if anything to help the situation. I dont post here to agree with what everyone else has typed or to be a trouble maker etc , I Post to share my opinions and perspective

and the little eye roll smilie ( as cute as it may be )does nothing to further your plight or gain my sympathy about the LPN profession being bashed.

I work with RPN's who have taught me many many important things , about patients as well as lifes lessons. I dont think that RN's are superior in anyway.It seems like some people on this board however misconstrue and twist what is meant to be pride in the RN professoin into the nasty notion that we all run around thinking we are so much better than everyone else. Anyone who feels as though he or she is being bashed needs to let the person making them feel that way know that it is not appropriate and follow the proper recourse.

rehashing the topic here is clearly of no help.

be proactive in your own practice, do the best you can do everyday on the job,leave with a clear concscience and take no abuse!

I am proud of being an RN, worked damn hard to get here and am happy to be among a wonderful group of people with RN behind their name, even prouder to be a part of an amazing group of people with many different "letters" behind their name but all having an important part in taking care of the needs of the people who need us most.

if youre stuck with the idea that you are being victimized you will always see yourself that way regardless of what is really going on....

as usual, wendy..

well said...'nuff said

[Stargazer]

vemiliob, thank you so much for offering a unique perspective. Although North American nurses dominate this board, it's always fascinating to me to hear how our profession is practiced, and perceived, in other parts of the world. I hope to see more posts from you.

p.s. I spent some time in Argentina 4 years ago--Buenos Aires and Ushuaia. What a beautiful country! Hope to return for another visit some day. :)