I Quit (Long Vent)

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Several Months ago my Doc changed office's and employer (due to unforseen circumstance over his contract) I enjoyed working with/for him and was able to move with him. I AM A MEDICAL ASSISTANT. the new employer was not able to hire anyone else to move with him and they would not have taken the nurse as she is an RN. We knew this would be a hard move, he has a very large practice with complicated patients, his practice is IM with special interest in Cardiovascular.

He moved to a very well known hospital/clinic the name of this place alone should speak of the quality of care you would recieve there. they are listed as employer of choice, most wired, ECT.

After several months of strugling I quit now I have handed in my notice, Why? I am a medical assistant, not a nurse, I can and often do work independently but come on give me a break.... at this place the medical assistants run the show, the nurses are stuck on the phones all day, with very little patient contact other than the phone, and unlike any other job i have ever had the nurse's here dont want to do what the MA is doing, I am overwhelmed giving shots, ekg's, holters, ordering cat scans, mri's, kub's, and doing all the admitting work such as calling for a bed getting the orders to the hosp. doing all the refills on meds(really the nurses dont do refills!!!!) the medical assistant does with the exception of controlled meds. those go to the Dr.I have to do ICD9 coding for labs and tests and cpt coding for the mri"s i also despence and instruct on the barium for testing, i also do the clea lab work, strep tests, ua's and blood sugars, i up date the med list the problem list and notify of labs, normal and some abnormal. and you know what those nurses will toss some phone msg's at me to top it off!!!:crying2:

The medical assistants outnumber the nurses 3 to 1 in this place and they dont want to hire nurses, Pay i quess would be why!! and all of this from a nationally recognized institution....

I have asked for help begged for help to no avail,we see 20 to 25 patients a day with many level 4 and 5's thrown in there this is how they do things, and no they dont view it as a liability:angryfire

I for one do not intent to stick around to watch the walls fall in when a pateint suffers because of this situation, and just how would they protect themselfs from the fallout!

ok anyway end of the rant, I respect nurses I want a nurse who wants to supervise and help me whom i can help in return but i want to be a medical assistant and stay within my scope and let the nurse do what she is trained to do ... NURSE. and supervise her medical assistant.

I cant mention the name of the place on here (wish i could) you would be shocked!!! I wont be seeking my health care there now or in the future and my family wont go there either since i want the best healthcare for me and my family. I think they have undermined the nurse and really overutilized the ma I want a nurse involved in my care Yes i would accept a medical assistant (I am one) but i really do understand what i am and am not trained for.

I will say i am walking away having learned a lot, I now know how to do all this without having gone to nursing school and i enjoy the knowledge (I love to learn) but in order to do this unsupervised by a nurse in charge watching me and overseeing me is WRONG.:angryfire its unfair to the patients.

I'm actually a "CQ" (CNA-QMA) I pass meds to 34-36 residents (they come and go). It was a readily attainable goal and I needed to do something different. I still do some CNA work. I still enjoy the "hands-on". I really don't have any foreseable goal. My sis is a veteran nurse (by that I don't mean the army) and she really likes it but I know it's a lot of responsibility and paperwork.

There's nothing wrong with being a CMA. You will learn so much. PA can be harsh weatherwise so I can see your reservations. Enjoy your kids first. By the way I have two sons in PA, near Pittsburg.

Take care Lorraine.:)

Became a "Q"?

I really wanted to go for LPN but the nearest school to me was 45 minutes for the classes, farther for clinicals. With kids still at home and the weather here in the winter (PA) I couldn't see how I could pull off leaving home at 5 a.m. to get to a 7:00 clinical in the winter.

Ah...well. We'll see how it goes. I have one more month of classes and 2.5 of externship.

I just like coming here to pick up the knowledge that flows abundantly. Maybe someday they'll come up with a CNA/CMA bridge program somewhere...I can always dream.

Thanks for remembering. :o)

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I'm actually a "CQ" (CNA-QMA) I pass meds to 34-36 residents (they come and go). It was a readily attainable goal and I needed to do something different. I still do some CNA work. I still enjoy the "hands-on". I really don't have any foreseable goal. My sis is a veteran nurse (by that I don't mean the army) and she really likes it but I know it's a lot of responsibility and paperwork.

There's nothing wrong with being a CMA. You will learn so much. PA can be harsh weatherwise so I can see your reservations. Enjoy your kids first. By the way I have two sons in PA, near Pittsburg.

Take care Lorraine.:)

I guess that was by big thing...to do something attainable. I was afraid that if I tried to go for nursing between the stress and the having to travel all the time with the weather, I'd get disgusted and give up. Plus, the fact that I would have had to have waited to get in because everywhere has waiting lists here. About two month after I started school I got an "invite" from the nursing school I applied to for an interview. I guess the more I come here and see the disparaging remarks about MA's, the more I doubt my decision, even though I know in my heart I'd have had a really hard time going the LPN route for the reasons I stated. :rolleyes: LPN pay stinks here too, unless you go LTC.

Wow, small world! I'm about 35-45 minutes outside of Pittsburgh myself!

Lorraine

CNA

almost MA

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Hang on to your raft Lorraine, the waters are still churning. Maybe something will come up that is suitable for us but in the meantime I am going to enjoy my husband, my kids and extendend family (and friends: between work and family there is very little time for anything else).:)

I guess that was by big thing...to do something attainable. I was afraid that if I tried to go for nursing between the stress and the having to travel all the time with the weather, I'd get disgusted and give up. Plus, the fact that I would have had to have waited to get in because everywhere has waiting lists here. About two month after I started school I got an "invite" from the nursing school I applied to for an interview. I guess the more I come here and see the disparaging remarks about MA's, the more I doubt my decision, even though I know in my heart I'd have had a really hard time going the LPN route for the reasons I stated. :rolleyes: LPN pay stinks here too, unless you go LTC.

Wow, small world! I'm about 35-45 minutes outside of Pittsburgh myself!

Lorraine

CNA

almost MA

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I am so sorry you had to quit your job. Hopefully your new position will be much better. I would also like to appaulde you. It has been discussed before that sometimes MAs like to work outside of their parameters and try and function as the nurse or even worse tell me they are the nurse. I am glad you are proud of being a MA and realize some skills are for nurses. If you love being a MA then stay one. doing what you love sometimes makes the day go by better. let us know how the new job is going!!

Kris

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Hang on to your raft Lorraine, the waters are still churning. Maybe something will come up that is suitable for us but in the meantime I am going to enjoy my husband, my kids and extendend family (and friends: between work and family there is very little time for anything else).:)

Amen to that! I told my husband I'll be glad to get to my externship so that I can actually have evenings that I don't have to spend studying. Go to work, come home and not have to be reciting medical terminology or anatomy in my brain while I'm doing laundry or cooking... Honestly, I lie in bed at night and term words are running through my head. :rolleyes:

Lorraine

CNA

almost MA

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I am so sorry you had to quit your job. Hopefully your new position will be much better. I would also like to appaulde you. It has been discussed before that sometimes MAs like to work outside of their parameters and try and function as the nurse or even worse tell me they are the nurse. I am glad you are proud of being a MA and realize some skills are for nurses. If you love being a MA then stay one. doing what you love sometimes makes the day go by better. let us know how the new job is going!!

Kris

Thank you for your support. I start my new position on Wed of this week and i know the people and the Dr there so I know it will work out well for me there, I am happy being an MA and have untill this experience always worked with great nurses who were supportive so i never had any reason to pretend to be a nurse, if i wanted to be a nurse i have the knowledge and skill to be one and i could go to school.... of that i have no doubts its just not what i want to do ... there is room for both MA's and Nurses in a clinical setting and I know for a fact that they can work well together and help each other. Thank you for understanding that.

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Specializes in icu,prime care,mri,ct, cardiology, pacu,.

The RN's on the phone get fed up too..we have lost a lot of nurses where i work from many hours on the phone..doing 50 to 60 calls in the am and getting flack from both the patients, staff and md's when the patients do want to come in to be seen.i found after many years of trying to talk patients out of coming in it was just as easy for them to see the md..after all i was only the nurse(with 14 years in that job and 20 years as a rn)..i accepted a transfer to another department and the staff, patients, mds' all function as a big family..i am willing and able to work as a rn, secretary, technican. and all that needs to be done for the patients..as if it wasn't for them..we would not all have jobs..getting out sounds like the best thing for you too...I hope the new job is better

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I think the answer is for us to be kind of one another, from the little minnow to the big fish we all have our problems. That is not to mean that we cannot voice LEGITIMATE concerns.

The RN's on the phone get fed up too..we have lost a lot of nurses where i work from many hours on the phone..doing 50 to 60 calls in the am and getting flack from both the patients, staff and md's when the patients do want to come in to be seen.i found after many years of trying to talk patients out of coming in it was just as easy for them to see the md..after all i was only the nurse(with 14 years in that job and 20 years as a rn)..i accepted a transfer to another department and the staff, patients, mds' all function as a big family..i am willing and able to work as a rn, secretary, technican. and all that needs to be done for the patients..as if it wasn't for them..we would not all have jobs..getting out sounds like the best thing for you too...I hope the new job is better
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YOU MAY AS WELL BECOME A NURSE. YOU SOUND KNOWLEDGABLE AND YOU WILL HAVE A CLEAR DEFINITION OF SCOPE OF PRACTICE. HOWEVER IN DEFENSE OF NURSES ON THE PHONE, I MUST TELL YOU ABOUT A SITUATION I WAS IN...FIRST THE SCENERIO...I WORK ON A LONG TERM VENT UNIT WHICH ENTAILS EACH PT NOT ONLY TO BE ON A VENT....BUT USUALLY A GT, CATH, IV....ETC LEAVING THEM EXTREMELY SUSCEPTABLE TO VARIOUS INFECTIONS.....NOT TO MENTION PSCHYCO-SOCIAL PROBLEMS.. I AM A LPN (CHARGE) I PASS THE MEDS, DO THE TX'S, CHANGE THE FEEDINGS, RUN MY IV'S, ETC, AND CALL THE DOC. I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH A PHYSICIAN, AND MY CNA WAS NEEDING ASSISTANCE WITH A PT WHO NEEDED HIS TX DONE, WHICH I KNEW I WOULD BE DOING ASAP, HOWEVER THIS CNA WANTED TO TAKE HER LUNCH BREAK ( I USUALLY TAKE A WORKING LUNCH BREAK) AND WHILE I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH THE DOCTOR WE LOOK AT EACH OTHER AND I GESTURE TO HER JUST A MINUTE, SHE GESTURES BACK TO ME WITH A TAPPING ON HER WATCH, TO LET ME KNOW TO HURRY UP WITH MY PHONE CALL SO SHE COULD TAKE HER LUNCH!!!

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Holy Cow! If you know how to do all that why don't you become a nurse? The pay will be commensurate to the work.

Heck ya. That's what I want to say :uhoh21:

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