LPNs...Not using us to our capabilities

RN34TX · Jun 9, 2007

I just recently moved to Red Lion, PA. I have been a nurse for 12 years and have critical care experience, iv cert and a lot of skills. I'm insulted that I'm only allowed to pass meds in a nursing home. I had a phone screening the other day asking me questions...can I do assessments...can I pass meds. I currently am working in a Baltimore hospital doing post-op ortho and hand traumas....along with everything else that comes up from the pacu. Time to move...where I'm at...I'm over-qualified for the positions. Any thoughts?

I experienced the same thing when I worked in PA in the late 90's as an LPN in Philadelphia area hospitals. I too thought it was so strange. My agency would send me to a particular hospital and I'd get these odd comments like "Oh I didn't know you could pass meds" and such.

I'd be thinking to myself "Well yes I can pass meds. I'm an LPN! What do people in PA think LPN's do?" I thought passing meds was standard in most any LPN job description in most any setting where they work but man, I thought that PA was the strangest state to work as an LPN because the RN's didn't seem to know what to do with me and most people seemed to have minimal knowledge of what an LPN was and/or what type of training and/or skills I had as an LPN.

I also once interviewed at a place that was run by a respiratory therapist in place of a nursing director. I knew that in PA I was not allowed to hang TPN per board regulations but she kept on insisting that she had the authority to override board decisions and allow "her LPN's" to hang TPN at this pediatric vent facility.

How crazy is that?

Sounds like things haven't changed much in 10 years.