In praise of LVN's

[Maliffy]

Ok, this is kind of a vent...but it's a positive one.

I graduated from nursing school with my ADN in December 2008, top of my class, and passed the NCLEX-RN in a half hour and 75 questions. That being said there are a lot of things that only experience can teach.

I work for a small home hospice as one of eight or so RN case managers. We also have three of the most amazing and wonderful LVN's on our staff. They see patients when the case manager is unavailable, or when it makes more sense to have them seen by an LVN (third bandage change in a single week etc...)

Each of our LVN's has a decade or more experience in home health. It drives me nuts-o when they "defer" to me as the RN, simply because they are LVN's. Yes, in theory my scope of practice is larger, I took more classes, my NCLEX included management and delegation, and I will have to co-sign their charting, but they have real world experience, something that is EXTREMELY valuable. I swear to you that one of them has seen more wounds than there are stars in the sky, yet she looks at me like I'm from mars when I place value on her opinion of the situation. I tried to explain to her that I respected her opinion and experience, but she's having a hard time wraping her brain around it.

I wanted to publicily announce that while education, scope and title DO matter, the wisdom of experience is blind to these. There are things that I can learn from EVERYONE, so please LVN's, CNA's, CHHA's and everybody out there...never sell yourself short. The new grads look up to you...regardless of the letters that follow your name!

[luckystudentnurseRN]

Thank you for posting this! I am currently in LVN school and it makes me feel good that there are RN's who do appreciate LVN's today! I hope to one day become an RN but this makes me feel better that there are RN who appreciate this work! Good luck to you!:heartbeat:yeah: