Office Nurses

MommyRn39 · Jul 20, 2002

I'm an office nurse and love it.

I work with a consulting pediatrician who specializes in the high risk, really sick children that are usually referred to us from family physicians. We see everything from premies, asthma, seizures, CF and CP to name a few. His areas of interest include enuresis, constipation/encopresis and asthma, so we see a lot of those too. Needless to say, I'm pretty knowledgable in all of that. We also have a number of "primary" patients. (basically healthy children that we follow for "normal" medical stuff....physicals, vaccines, colds, etc.)

My duties include: everything! :chuckle

Well...almost everything. I do pretty much all the initial assessments before the doctor gets to the patient. I do a good percentage of the vaccines as well. (which in this practice can be substantial) I'm responsible for patient teaching, for all the primary patients (making sure that vaccines are up to date, physicals, etc), telephone triage and to a certain extent prescriptions.(mainly updating and renewing long-term meds) I maintain the medication samples cupboards and vaccination stock, ordering when necessary. I also make sure the examining room is stocked and tidy.

Once or twice a week, I trade in my nurses uniform for a telephone headset and work as the office receptionist. Actually, "trade in" is not the correct term here....it should be "add" because even though I'm manning the phones, I'm still nursing.

Our office uses a medical records system that is on computer and I'm also responsible for scanning in all the consultation letters that we get from various doctors. That's a daunting task because it can take up to 5 to 10 minutes to scan in and edit a letter into a patient's chart. I'm always running behind, which is very frustrating.

You're right, our job is not as dramatic as some of the hospital nurses, but to tell you the truth, I would never leave it to go back to the hospital.

Love-A-Nurse · Jul 20, 2002

office nursing was the second job i had as i begun my nursing career. i worked for a clinic that had three doctors. the rns were hard to keep because the pay was not good at all.

i was hired as the clinic's supervisor (lpn). i learned a lot on this job and i enjoyed the diversity of it. we saw moms who were pregnant to the men and women in their late adulthood. i got to see minor surgery, set up rooms for exams, triage, assist md, make appointments, draw blood, teach, made the schedule and assignments for the nursing assistances and others and many others things. we had the best doctors and they were glad to teach!

we had a dentist office "up" from us in the same building and i got to peep in on how the dentist and the staff worked too. the only reason i left was because of pay. thanks for letting me think of a good memory!

RNConnieF · Jul 20, 2002

I spent 5 years as a pediatric office nurse and loved most of it (I can not tell a lie). I really liked that I got to see a mix of well and sick kids and families. I did it as an LPN but had all the duties of an RN. I did assessments, treatments, medications, immunizations, and phone triage. I was the "breast feeding" nurse in the office since I came to them as a Certified BF Educator and a Certified Parentint Educator.I really learned a lot as I was able to ask the docs all the questions I wanted and the younger docs really respected my education and experience. I loved it, the hours where great! Only thing, the pay was awful. I left and got a $10.00 an hour raise and that was BEFORE I got my RN.

andrewsgranny, ASN, RN · Jul 21, 2002

Yea the pay is still a draw back with office nursing. And I cant understand why. I love my job and I love the hours, so I guess in my situation it equals out. I wear many hats in our office. And do alot of teaching and learn something new everyday. I always wanted to do this and cant see my life without it. We have a very good Dr. he is good to us and wonderful with the pts. Sometimes I think too good. They are spoiled. They think they are coming into wal-mart or to a fine restaurant and should just be able to tell him what they want. They think they should be able to walk in off the street with c/o a rash that they have had for 3 weeks and be able to be seen right away. It dont matter that they've had it for 3 weeks, or that Miss. Jones has a scheduled appt. that she has made a week ago. All that matters is that they get in right now, and if they have to wait to be worked in they will tell on you:imbar They will go into an exam room after finally being called back and tell that we made them wait and they had a hair appt. that was almost missed because if us. And yes we will hear about it from the good Doc. Sometimes you cant win. But usually the good over runs the bad.:) So you take it with a grain of salt and wait for it to happen again, and it will. Thanks for your response on this. Glad to see I'm not alone in cyber space.:kiss

MommyRn39 · Jul 21, 2002

What is the going pay rate for office nurses in the US? I'm Canadian and earn $15/hr which is about $10/hr less than what I would earn if I was in the hospital.

Love-A-Nurse · Jul 21, 2002

originally posted by mommyrn39
what is the going pay rate for office nurses in the us? i'm canadian and earn $15/hr which is about $10/hr less than what i would earn if i was in the hospital.

i don't know what it is now as it was 1991 when i work as an office nurse and i made $6.50; the rns made not much more, maybe 2-4 dollars more.

andrewsgranny, ASN, RN · Jul 21, 2002

I make 12.25 an hour. I'm an LPN been working in this clinic for 7yrs. I could make more in the hospital,but I love these hours. :rolleyes:

RNConnieF · Jul 21, 2002

As an LPN with 5 years in I was making $13.40 an hour. As a new LPN in LTC I was making $18.50. As a brand new GN I was making $20.50 with a $2.00 raise when I got the RN.