LVN in recovery room

U.S.A. California

Published

I work in Labor and Delivery and although other hospitals have used LVNs in both Labor recovery and Surgery recovery, this hospital says it is not in their scope of practice. The LVN is always working under an RN, never alone. Please help me with this issue as I really want to know what is legally right here in CA. This LVN has worked for many yrs in L&D recovery and can work circles around most RNs I know.

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Our scope of practice is very limited with regard to taking care of post anesthesia patients! (I'm an LVN too). We can't assess them, we can't give them IV meds, we usually need to be ACLS certified and certification of ACLS with an LVN doesn't allow you to do much. Therefore, we really are useless in that scenario. I worked for a surgery center for awhile and after I completed the pre-op for that day, I'd help in PACU but what it was, was "collecting data". I'd collect vital signs, help fill out d/c paperwork. I could only assist with the patients who were under MAC (Monitored Anesthesia Care aka Twilight). If they received General Anesthesia, couldn't go near em in a sense. Hope that helps!

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This is for labor and delivery where there are many lady partsl deliveries as well as c-sections under spinal anesthesia. Rarely do we use general.

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