LPN mistreated in dialysis

Lacie, BSN, RN · Jan 22, 2009

Sorry to hear you have had such a nightmare of an experience. Remember anytime you make a "deal" with an FA or another management - Get it in writing!!!! I've been in many situation where sudden amnesia becomes evident! Also your education takes precedence. Do what is in your best interest and dont allow one clinic to sour you on dialysis. There are good clinics and good managers out there! I have several people I work the schedule around thier classes. I have one staff member who is ready to graduate as a licensed accupunturist and he knows I'll be his first patient in his own office lol!!

FireStarterRN, BSN, RN · Jan 22, 2009

A dialysis nurse told me that dialysis techs are brutal and hard to manage. Probably this situation was doomed. Just chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. You're right, your first priority is to finish school.

LPN30 · Jan 22, 2009

Sorry to hear you have had such a nightmare of an experience. Remember anytime you make a "deal" with an FA or another management - Get it in writing!!!! I've been in many situation where sudden amnesia becomes evident! Also your education takes precedence. Do what is in your best interest and dont allow one clinic to sour you on dialysis. There are good clinics and good managers out there! I have several people I work the schedule around thier classes. I have one staff member who is ready to graduate as a licensed accupunturist and he knows I'll be his first patient in his own office lol!!

Thanks. Believe it or not I'm more sad than sour because as hard as it was to learn the ropes, I liked dialysis. Where I am, FMC owns almost every clinic and those not owned by them wont train. How can I learn now without going back?! I wonder if a hospital will train me in acute when I finish RN school. Do they require you to have experience in chronic or ICU first?

soulofme · Jan 23, 2009

A dialysis nurse told me that dialysis techs are brutal and hard to manage. Probably this situation was doomed. Just chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. You're right, your first priority is to finish school.

Yes, they CAN be and when the RN actually sits down to do the nurses duties the techs get huffy cause you're not out on the floor helping them do their jobs. The techs can't help with my duties but they can make life miserable when you don't help them 100%. Doesn't matter that I have to stay and finish my job when they're climbing over each others backs to see who can get out of the clinic earliest.... :banghead:

jnette, ASN, EMT-I · Jan 24, 2009

I, too, am really sorry about this bad experience. But as one who worked in dialysis for ten years (the first 5 as a tech), I will repeat what was said above... there ARE good clinics and managers out there.

Ours went above and beyond.. she was on the floor with us more often than not helping out, she bent over backwards to meet our scheduling preferences. She was the one who encouraged me from the forst month I was employed there to go back to school and persue my RN. I did, and continued to work there for several yrs. after getting my RN. Another colleague who is a tech there is going to school for her LPN, then bridging to RN, and this manager is working with her any way she can to see that she meets her school schedule.

And our techs (we must have been really fortunate) were super !!! They pulled their load, and weren't all huffy or bossy as I have heard them described here so often. We all worked as a team,

as a family, and were eager to help each other out regardless of our "title".

There is a lot of difference in clinics, and in STATES.. in what LPNs and techs may or may not do. Our LPNs did everything the RN did except for taking MD orders. They did all the lung sounds, foot checks, full pre and post tx. asessments... meds, everything.

Our techs gave heparin pre-tx., did catheters, did it all except meds and assessments.

NO WAY should you work as a tech... FMC tried to get ALL their facilities to do away with LPNs and have them stay on as techs, and this created a HUGE uproar nation wide, and they finally backed down and let the LPNs (most of whom had been there for 10+ years!) stay. But they did say that they would no longer HIRE any new LPNS.. only RNs and techs... but they did let the current ones stay and work under their license.

FMC (imo) is really all about the $$.. and the reason I ended up leaving and going to Home Health in the end. I loved the work, loved the patients, loved my coworkers.. ALL of them... and ourclinic manager/facility administrator. It was FMC and their policies, their lies, and total disregard of staff and their needs.. unwillingness to even HEAR any staff concerns, much less address them.. I just lost all respect for them as a company... MEGA company. :stone

The only thing I am grateful for is that they did pay for all my RN schooling, 100% reimbursement. And I'm very grateful for having had the experience in dialysis that I did. I loved it, and don't regret any of that part of it.

Get your schooling behind you, and if you want to give it another shot later, go for it. Do your research, get all your info up front, check out these clinics in person and see how they do things, what the work-environment is there, how staff get along, etc. And yes, get everything in writing!

Wish you the best! :)

Valerie Salva, BSN, RN · Jan 30, 2009

I started at FMC in December and I'm already done! First of all the pay sucks. I took a rediculous pay cut($4) because I wanted to learn dialysis and I felt that after I finished RN school the experienced would pay off. (wanted to learn a specialty so I could travel) From day 1 the techs treated me like s*#t and would not show me or let me do a damn thing. I got the feeling that the RNs probably didnt want to work wiyh me because they are required to sign off behind me on anything I would do. FMC policy says I cant do foot checks but I can take off the socks and shoes for the RN. (how degrading is that) When I interviewed I told clinic manager that I needed certain days off because of school and she agreed to hire me but after I started working she got amnesia! She put me on schedule to work days I had to go school. When I confronted her about it, she told me dont worry about coming those days, but when I didnt show up she tried to write me up! And all this was after I dropped a class to try to work 40 hours for her and I signed up as a 30 hr a week employee! And to top it off THEY WAIT A MONTH AND HALF TO TELL ME THAT SINCE I'M A LPN THEY'RE GONNA USE ME AS A TECH! Then she tried to make it seem like I had too much personal stuff going on to work there because all I wanted was one f#$%ing day off a week to go to school. I dont know If I'm more hurt than mad or what. I gotta finish school.

It would be a cold day in Hades before a tech would ever take the socks and shoes off of a pt for the RN.

My experience with FMC is that they overwhelm the RNs with so much work, that they don't have any time to keep proper tabs on the techs, and the techs end up controllling the units. They also blurr the lines between tech and nurse by having the RNs do things like empty trash cans, scrub chairs and turn over machines. This ensures that techs feel that the nurses are the same as they are, so there is no need to respect them.

FMC will work you like a mule, disrespect you, and squeeze every penny til it screams for mercy.

They may have the contract for the acutes at your local hospital, as well.

workingmomRN · Feb 2, 2009

FMC & Davita both are changing what the LPN is allowed to do. Presently, I work for Davita, but have worked for FMC as well. Until recently, the LPN could do the pre-tx assessment & sign off on it, but now they cannot. The RN has to sign off on all assessments. I'm not sure where all this is coming from, but at the FMC unit where I still prn at times, the LPN is the charge nurse over the RN's. I had always be told that an LPN could not be charge over an RN, but it's not my call to make. I just want whoever I work with to be competent & easy to work with.

As for the techs, no matter what area of nursing you go into, you will run into that type of behavior. Even the good ones will complain about you behind your back at times. I've always said that we can help them do their job, but they cannot help us do ours. When you're out on the floor helping put on or take off patients, they get to leave when the patients are done, but you're still there with 2 hours of work left to do & a CM who wants to know why it takes so many hours for you to complete your duties.

FMC, Davita, it doesn't matter. They will all work you to death. Sometimes I hate going to work each day, but in the long run, I have to admit to myself that I do like dialysis & I would miss it if I wasn't in it.

I have given some thought to changing to another area of nursing, but am not sure where to go right now. With the way that the economy is going, now is not a good time to lose seniority. The local hospital here has already started laying off staff, some of which are direct-patient care staff.

soulofme · Feb 2, 2009

Wow a LPN over a RN...how does that work...I don't think I'd like that if I'd be the one doing all the assessments and the responsibility falls on my shoulders... just how does that work?

workingmomRN · Feb 7, 2009

This is in a Renal Research Institute facility, which is owned by Fresenius now, and uses FMC policies. The CM and this LPN have what I consider to be an unprofessional relationship. They go shopping together, and that sort of stuff. The CM tells this LPN her instructions for the clinic, and then the LPN gives the instructions to the rest of the staff, including the RN's. And they tell me that policy allows for the LPN to be a charge nurse. When I had my yearly review last year, the CM told me that she wanted to see me take more of a charge nurse attitude, but how can you act as a charge nurse when the CM constantly communicates with the LPN & no one else? Anyway, they have to use a lot of travel nurses because they cannot keep any RN's full time. I still prn there sometimes, but work full time at a Davita clinic.

GeauxNursing · Feb 26, 2009

the LVNs in my experience, are basically a tech with more responsibilities. I have to set up my 4 machines, put on my 4 patients, assess them, monitor them, give their meds, take them off, clean machines, restring, do it all over again, give the hypertonics and the tylenol because the RNs don't want to do it anymore, it's not important enough for them, now that I have my license. The RNs in my clinic don't take pts, unless there is overflow. they do meds, assessments and catheters. and deal with all the doctors. which is more than I care to deal with at this point in time.

But, I feel like for all the work we do, we should be paid more. can I get an amen? I am(was) the lowest-paid PCT in my clinic. My boss offered me, once I got my license, 2 dollars more than I KNOW some of our PCTs make. i was shocked. I went to school for 16 months, while working full-time for her, busting my butt every day and never sleeping, studying my tail off to get my nursing license, and she is going to insult me by offering me a pinch more than our PCT makes? absolutely not.

I'm not too bitter, In just had a bad day :banghead:

redknight · Mar 26, 2009

OK Im gonna shoot me self in the foot for this comment.1st off where Im from by state lic board a LPN can not be over a RN. 2nd no way would I let that happen and I would call the board of req. on that one.3rd had the same situation of the girly buddies thing with male bashing the usual subject. Put an end to that one when I filed a complaint with corp. with the note that I would go to the state if not address. So here is the shoot the foot comment GUYS as a rule don t put up with that female BS as a rule.Most of the guy nurses feel the same way they can t be bothered with that gossip girly bull crap.