OT, SLP, AuD, PT, etc

Nurses General Nursing

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I was just wondering what nurses thought of the less commonly mentioned (on this web board) allied health personnel. I have still not decided which path to take but just wanted to get some feedback about those that you nurses have interacted with in regards to

(1) hours (MOT or full time or part time)

(2) are they knowledgable of their specialty

(3) are they respected or laughed at by those who work with them...are they only pseudo-healthcare professionals?

(4) do they come across as being satisfied with their career?

Here's the list I was wondering about:

(I do realize these jobs span the whole gamit from little training to doctoral training)

--Occupational Therapist (usually bachelor's or master's)

--Audiologist (master's or doctorate)

--Speech-Language Pathologist (usually master's)

--Medical Technologist (bachelor's)

--Physical Therapist (usually master's )

--Perfusionist (certificate or bachelor's or master's)

--Sonographer (certificate or bachelor's)

--Psychologist (master's or doctorate)

--Radiologic Technologist (associate's or bachelor's)

--Surgical Technologist (diploma or associate's)

My best friend is a PT, she has an undergraduate degree in something like Chemistry and her Master's in PT. I don't think anyone looks down on PT's, except for perhaps a few uneducated patients and/or support staff (for some reason, she gets crap from some of the CNA's). She really enjoys her work, although it's tough to find a fulltime permanent job straight out of school.

in my experience it depends on the person. some therapists are good at their job and also willing to work as a team with the nurses. others think they are "above" doing many things that would benefit the pt. for instance: nursing gets the pt up and dressed for breakfast, the pt. attends the meal, two therapy sessions, and is worn out. the pt asks the therapist to help them back to bed. the therapist pushes them to the bedside and tell them to call the nurse. many times they still have 5-10 minutes of their therapy time left but still the therapist will not help them to bed for a rest. wtf! or a pt. asks for a drink and the therapist walks all around the unit to find the nurse to get the pt something to drink. and i'm talking about pts. that they are very familiar with and know the diet. i could go on and on. sheesh! in other words, some are very helpful and good to the pts., while others will not do one extra small thing that they consider to be a nursing job. the latter ones suk!

I work with PTs, OTs, and SLPs in a rehab setting. All are professionals, polite, team players, and respected by the other staff. I have found the PTs to be especially knowledgeable.

My only complaint about any of them is that they don't always keep the nursing staff (an dthe docs, too, I think) aware of the paitents' progress regarding transferring, ambulation status, etc.

I am glad you posted the amount of education needed to become any of the health professionals you listed. The reason being is because in the healthcare world education status is every thing. It does not matter how bright you are or how hard you work. There is a ceiling to much autonomy respect and responsibility you will have with any of those professions and it is directly related to the amount of education. The reason I bring this up is if you are looking to get in nursing because you can get in and out of school quickly, (community college programs) you will pay a price when you get out. Nurses may not want to hear this, but it is true. Most of the other professionals you mentioined did not go into nursing because of the dirty work expected of you and lack of autonomy. That is the two most often cited reasons when I ask them if they thought about nursing. As a nurse you may actually make more money than some of the other professions, but as I said in general you get less respect because of the lower educational requirements in nursing and the fact that some still see it as a subservient job, which in many ways it is; you are expected to wait on the patients and in many private hospitals you are suppose to wait on the MD staff and treat them as clients. Bottem line is as long as you can get into nursing without even a min. of a BSN you will be at the bottem of the education ladder and perceived as such. Even though as a bedside nurse you play a very important part as a healthcare member. But you are also worked like a mule and are perceived by many as the hospital mule, the work could not get done without you but most would not want your job. This view I have may piss of a lot of nurses especially non BSN nurses, and I am not looking to start up that debate about education requirements to become a nurse, but rather expressing my view as I see it. I am still at the bedside and started out with a associate degree, but quickly realized that I would have to go back and get more education if I wanted to get a better healthcare job with more autonomy and better pay and respect as oppose to *****ing about for the rest of my nursing career as so many do. I have just finished my BSN and looking to grad. school and getting into anesth. So, when looking around at other healthcare professions make sure you see the correlation between higher education requirements and a better job description, these are just the facts as I see them. But it fits other job fields too.

Specializes in Pediatric Rehabilitation.

I think PT's & SLP's rock! I don't know what we'd do w/o ours. As for respectability..I actually think they are more respected than nurses..

and as a whole, they definitely appear more educated (IN MY AREA...IN MY OPINION .

I say ---TEAMWORK----- For the patients best interest----RT, PT, SLP,OT,--- Hey!-- whichever my unit choses to utilize..We Work together,and a good R.N. can pull the team along and booster the pt's confidence in the other team members:) (imho)

Hi there to all. I have been a reader on allnurses for a while, but just registered because of this thread. I am a medical technologist in a hospital transfusion service, dealing with ICU, CVICU, OR and ER mainly, and feel like I work well with most all of the nurses. We have to have a good working relationship to give our patients the best care possible. Sadly, since everyone is overworked, the lab often gets the blame for computer problems, sample problems, blood supplier problems, etc.. I do get tired of taking the heat for stuff thats not my fault. But I guess thats nothing new to all of you!

Also, chicoborja, we in medical technology (ASCP certified, 4 year BS degree) are very knowledgeable about our field, behave professionally (well, most of the time :) ) and work overtime, weekends, holidays, etc as much as nurses do. Only thing is we are not given the pay raises as much as nurses are (at least in our hospital) because we are seen as being easily replaced, either by automated tests or by sending out lab work to contracted facilities. We have had a job posted for 4 months and just now had it filled. I think that we med techs are becoming as hard to find as nurses!

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