LTC nurses...

Specialties Geriatric

Published

I am in no way saying everyone; because I have worked with some great LTC nurses.

However having gone from LTC to a hospital, LTC nurses are the laziest I have ever seen. They would never make it in a hospital setting and actually have to do direct patient care. I am going was so done with seeing these people sitting at the nurses station and taking multiple smoke breaks.

Nurses in the hospital actually get up and will do anything you ask for help with, where as with them not so much.

Hats off to any CNAs is who stay at these places, but it is not worth it. Yes

Specializes in Hospice.
Wow you don't know my expierences and things I have seen go on in LTC. Or the amount of hours I have worked and residents I have taken on.

I stated above I have friends who are LPNs.

Your profile page says you have six years of experience. How many different facilities? Even if you changed your facility every year, that's obviously not enough to find out how much you don't know.

As far as I'm concerned, nurse-bashing goes into the same trash bin as CNA-bashing, patient-bashing, student-bashing, family-bashing and doctor-bashing. The one labeled "Nonsense that makes you feel better about doing a lousy job."

Everyone is entitled to have different experiences and opinions. This is mine. If you love working in LTC and you take care of everyone then great.

My expierence has not been that great so I got out of it and now this is the opinion I have formed from that experience. Same with of someone had a bad hospital experience or whatever it may be.

As I said I have worked with some great nurses. And I have watched them get burned out because no one appreciated their hard work and the patient ratios were so high.

Trust me if I found some great facility I would do it again. But don't judge me based on my experience or say this field isn't for me when you have no idea who I even am or how hard I work.

1 Votes

Well...I've had the same experience. It's true that CNAs might not always be aware of where the nurse is/ what they are doing (their charting is often much more intensive than ours, for example, and I don't begrudge them sitting to do it). However, when the nurse is sitting behind a glass-fronted nurses station with the door closed, where i can see them reading a romance book, or crocheting, or when a nurse asks me (when I was a CNA) to "check Mr. ____'s skin when you turn him", then charts a skin assessment on him based on what I said....Yes, there are lazy, awful LTC nurses. There are also MANY fantastic ones. I also worked as a CNA on a med/surg floor, and although there are nurses who I did not consider to be stellar, it never reached the same level of lazy/dangerous nursing I saw in LTC. So, I can totally sympathize with the OP's comments.

However: observe management. At the LTC facility where I worked, the management stayed in their offices, one floor away from patient care. There was the scheduling manager whose office was on the floor, but all managers kept their door closed and rarely took a stroll-though to see how the staff was operating. At the hospital, the management was up our (nurses and CNAs) butts all the time: stressful, but ultimately a good thing for work culture. It depends on numerous factors, but a bad work culture seems to thrive when management thinks that reviewing charts and statistics beats directly observing care. I concluded it had more to do with that than the type of facility itself.

I just finished nursing school. My heart is in LTC- I loved each and every one of my residents. I'm self-motivated and love the thought of using down-time to spend on direct patient care....even though I do love me some trashy romance and crocheting :D I'm going into end-of-life care for nursing. When I feel burned-out and unappreciated...I'll keep in mind the terrible and the good nurses, and pick my side.

I still work PRN in a LTC because I love the residents and I have friends there.

And it's not a typical nursing home. It's a long term ventilation unit. So everyone is total dependence and the nurses could do a lot more to help. I learned a ton from this facility though and it helped me get a hospital job.

Like I said don't make some blanket defensive statement.

Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

I have worked in various settings as a RN and have seen the spectrum of people who are lazy to very hard working. I have seen lazy CNA's and very hard working CNA's, as well as LVN's and RN's. I have worked in LTC as an RN supervisor and know that the spectrum applies there as well. As others have stated RN's do not usually do direct patient care but have a ton of paperwork instead with a high degree of responsibility. The LVN's that I have worked are very hard working, competent, caring people, yes they do take their breaks as they should. I realize that your personal experience may be different but please do not think that all LTC nurses are lazy or do not care. Just like hospital nursing there is just not enough time and sometimes patient care (when applicable) may need to wait for reasons that you just do not understand. Just like you would not want to be judged as a lazy CNA because some CNA's are lazy, nurses should not be accused of being lazy because you happen to run into one (if in fact the nurse was lazy, which we really don't know). In my opinion the LVN's and CNA's who work LTC are very special people who have a heart to take care of this group of people who do indeed all have long term special needs and you should be glad that there are people who could easily go elsewhere but CHOOSE to stay!

Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

I know there are some like those you describe, but when I worked at a LTC/Rehab I worked my *** off. Rarely sitting, no smoke breaks (besides the fact that that would kill me at this point), and gave patients the most/best care I could give 'em given time constraints and patient load.

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
I am in no way saying everyone; because I have worked with some great LTC nurses.

However having gone from LTC to a hospital, LTC nurses are the laziest I have ever seen. They would never make it in a hospital setting and actually have to do direct patient care. I am going was so done with seeing these people sitting at the nurses station and taking multiple smoke breaks.

Nurses in the hospital actually get up and will do anything you ask for help with, where as with them not so much.

Hats off to any CNAs is who stay at these places, but it is not worth it. Yes

Are you actually trying to pick a fight?

I've had a really busy day in LTC, dealing with end of life patients and ensuring they have the needed medications in place (because unlike acute care, we dont have doctors resident on site) to ensure that the family knows whats going on and are happy with the care we have in place. Also dealing with one patient who is freaked out that they had a heart attack last week and is completely freaked out and keeps asking me if they are going to die. Also another patient who is really out of sorts, coughing up greenish brown sputum and urine so purulent its amazing that the patient isnt in a raging delirium and unconscious. Did I mention the other patient who has a tympanic stomach, and what appears to be overflow incontinence, nothing in the rectum so suppositories are not going to help and having to get the doctor who is not on site to chart some extra lax sachets to try and move the constipation from the top down. Finish off the interrai and care plan for one patient and try and make a start on the 10 other outstanding careplans. (this was just in one day) so perhaps I'm not my usual loquacious self.

I've worked full time in LTC for the last four years, and worked as an agency nurse across multiple acute hospitals part time which often involves going into a ward I've never worked in and being prepared to hit the ground running.

So, in conclusion, I think you are making gross generalisations

I work in long term care because I choose to, and because I get to make a difference every single day I'm there

I have a work phone, its an iphone, and I use it all the time because its a hell of alot easier than trying to deal with our decrepit phone system

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
That's great that you found one like that. I am just saying what I have experienced and I was finally done with it.

You are always welcome to share your experience

What you will be challenged on every time, is when you make sweeping generalisations about an entire group of nurses based on that experience

Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.

This sweeping generalization you've made says much more about you and your character than anything else.

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

I am an RN, and in most of my LTC experience, I have done the same

job as the LPN's, pretty much... passing medications, doing treatments,

charting, etc.. just wanted to put that out there. Not every RN working

in LTC is a supervisor/pen pusher.

When I DID work as a supervisor... it was two long months of pure

hell that I shall never know again. :) Hopefully.

LTC nurses generally do not have TIME to be lazy, or sadly to

help their CNA's. Too busy... passing meds, doing treatments,

and charting!

In my last full time LTC job as a floor nurse... I worked 11-7,

and barely had time to stop and eat lunch. That's 11PM to

7AM. And that was without being able to help the aides.

Much. I did what I could, when I could.

There is no sharing an expierence on here or having an opinion obviously because if it's a negative one it gets turned around on you.

All through high school I worked in activities at a nursing home and then became a CNA. For a long time all I wanted to do was work in LTC. But after so long of seeing things not be done and people not caring it was time to move on to the next thing.

It's great that you all do care about your residents. By again this has not been the typical experience for me. There is no need to jump all over me and assume I am an awful CNA and person because this is the work expierence I have had.

1 Votes

1. I actually inquired about employment at a private LTC facility

i handed my app in, spoke to the charge nurse. I get to telling her "I have anxiety and chest pain, but it's pretty decently controlled with Kava. Is that ok?"

Charge goes on to say every employee there mostly has an anxiolytic in them.

Like, wow, is this your workplace environment? I was shocked. Shocked might be an understatement.

2. I don't think I've ever came so close to fainting until this day...

I used to work at a smoke shop.

This one young lady would come in fairly often . Young LTC nurse, amicable, and cute as a button. I got to chatting her up and contemplated asking her out to dinner.

All was going good. She'd come in, I'd chat her up. Repeat for a week. One day she comes in, eyes dark as can be, and asks for a "oil burner"

That's smoke shop slang for a meth pipe.

3. I have 2 homes. One in small town America, the other in the big city.

I've gone to the local saloon a handful of times to have a beer after my long commute. Just one single beer. Use the opportunity to socialize mainly,for heaven's sake.

I look over and there's a LTC employee I recognize. I already knew her as being real self absorbed (to put it nicely) and the party type.

She is still in her scrubs, ETOH, probably on beer #15 smoking a joint.

Yeah, I'd LOVE for her to be my caretaker. I don't care if that's after work activity, that says a lot about someones responsibility.

Not the behavior I'd expect out of a healthcare professional.

Heaven forbid, I've never drank more than 5 beers in a 24 hour period. Spaced out over 8 hours BBQing for an old friend and catching up with old times around a all night bonfire.

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