Misleading information

Nurses General Nursing

Published

My daughter graduated from her CNA class tonight. One of the speakers was an administrator from the LTC where she did her clinicals. This woman gave a motivational speech about reaching your dreams, doing whatever you want, etc. Then she said that "You girls should consider going on to get your LVN. It only takes a year. Think about it: you will make about $12 an hour now as a CNA, but one year from now you can be licensed and making $24 an hour."

Hubs had to step on my toes because I was literally having to bite my lips to keep from yelling out "WHAT?????"

When I got out of LPN school in 2000 my pay at the nursing home was $12/hr, and that was competitive here. I'd like to know where LPNs make $24/hr and I'll go have my LPN license reinstated.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I'm not saying it's not possible to be an LVN within a year of starting, because of programs like the one mentioned above. But what nursing program has NO wait list? And I don't think there are those kinds of programs in that area either. Plus nothing was said about being unable to practice anywhere outside of CA, like RNs who attended programs like that.

I'm a bit confused about what you felt was misleading. Was it that they can just walk into LPN school? Or the salary? I ask this because as a CNA, I did make $12 an hour 10 years ago, and as an LPN, I have been making about $20 hourly at my 'main' job in a hospital clinic and $25 an hour working a home care case.

I can identify with misleading people with the fallicy that just walking into ANY nursing program; LPN or RN will be immediate. My job paid my way through school; offered me a full time leave with pay, and I had the alleged choice to either become an LPN or an RN. I was never interested in becoming an RN, and I had no college experience under my belt, so, I opted for LPN...thinking that I would have a 9 month vocational training. It wound up being a bridge program, and had to take close to the same pre-requisites as RN students. I had to sort of fight to ensure that I was obtaining at least a 3.6 GPA to get accepted. Anyway, I did it, I graduated, got the LPN license.

When we came back to work, my job (who is applying for magnet status), has other funds to send people to school and they are telling them; "CNAs, become LPNs, LPNs, become RNs". It is NOT that easy...and they are wasting their money, especially since they are no longer offering full time leave with pay that my group received. I am not saying that they are wasting money to offer a career and a future for my co-workers. What I am saying is that they are NOT telling them about the waiting lists, the exceedingly high GPA and the intense competition involved. What they should offer older adults while trying to obtain this is remedial classes in math, reading and such (many of my co-workers fell to the wayside because they had to take remedial classes several times) in order to give them the best advantage. There are too many grants, scholarships and such for the college to care about our plight. Unfortunately, you do not wake up, decide to be a nurse, and it just happens. It is ROUGH out there to become any sort of nurse, yet, there is a shortage. Many of the people who have since asked for financial assistance to become nurses wound up having to pay back the money and time somehow, because they could not cut it in college. I do agree...do NOT mislead people. It is not fair to them. Be real about how hard it is, and the long process from wanting to be a nurse to actually becoming one.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
When I got out of LPN school in 2000 my pay at the nursing home was $12/hr, and that was competitive here. I'd like to know where LPNs make $24/hr and I'll go have my LPN license reinstated.

New York City, we have that rate of pay, but our costs of living are higher.

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No, not the salary, the salary is very believable. It was the idea that one can walk into a school tomorrow, say, "Enroll me," and a year from now they're licensed.

Karen, it wasn't the length of the program itself that I question, I know it can be done in a year. And about going to other states: I met an LVN recently who tried to move to Idaho, I think it was, and she was unable to endorse her license because she went through a one-year program that was just nursing courses, no sciences, and the program was not accredited. The program she went through was similar to a condensed RT program that CA has (don't know if other states do).....six months later they come out with an RT cert, no license. I know there is no such thing as a certified VN, but the program format is similar.

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No, not the salary, the salary is very believable. It was the idea that one can walk into a school tomorrow, say, "Enroll me," and a year from now they're licensed.

I went to one of the small, expensive technical schools. I walked in and filled out the paperwork, took a test, gave them 3 references, had a physical and 2 weeks later I was starting classes.

If I had stayed in the day program, I would have finished in 15 months; but I went to the evening program because the pace was a little slower and I finished in almost 2 years.

Two weeks after my last class I had my ATT and I scheduled my test for the following month so that I could study a little more and luckily I passed with my first try.

The school I went to was the only LPN program in my area. Very easy to get into, but hard to stay in. Alot of people ended up being kicked out or just quit.

Anyway, there are schools without waiting lists that are easy to enroll in ... I guess there are just very few of them. ;)

Also, as far as I know, there are no issues with my license and other states because of the school I went to. I have a multi-state privilege and my friend that was in school with me just had her license transferred to Georgia.

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Ooooohhh, I work with some lovely CNAs who are hard workers, and sweet to the residents, but God bless them, I cringe at the thought of a potentially lethal medication in their dumb little hands...it only takes a year, right?

Wow, that's a pretty offensive statement. From what I understand, you mean that LPNs are not qualified to dispense meds.

I'm a good nurse, but I guess medication in my dumb little hands is a potential for disaster, right?

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Specializes in LTC, home health, critical care, pulmonary nursing.
Wow, that's a pretty offensive statement. From what I understand, you mean that LPNs are not qualified to dispense meds.

I'm a good nurse, but I guess medication in my dumb little hands is a potential for disaster, right?

Um, not even close. I mean that if LPN programs were as easy to get into as the speaker the OP talked about said they were, I can just see some of the AIDES I work with scrambling to get in line. Some of the aides I work with would be a disaster waiting to happen, no matter how much school they went to. It was a post about particular people I know personally, not about any LPN at all, and certainly not about an LPNs ability to dispense medications. I'm sorry if you misunderstood, I didn't mean to offend you.

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I appreciate you explaining the intent of your post.

J

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Ooooohhh, I work with some lovely CNAs who are hard workers, and sweet to the residents, but God bless them, I cringe at the thought of a potentially lethal medication in their dumb little hands...it only takes a year, right?

I resent "dumb little hands". Though I do not think that meds should be the responsibility of CNAs. CNAs often have huge patient loads and tons of other responsibilities thrown on them. It is a huge risk to give more jobs, especially one so scary as medications.

I always thought I had it good at $8 an hour for being a CNA. Then I learned in the area we just moved from (SAHM now until I finish my RN) that they made $16 an hour!!!!

That speech sounds totally misleading.

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I resent "dumb little hands".

To give the poster the benefit of the doubt, I can interpret what was meant by that comment to be a little less inflammatory, though it certainly wasn't phrased at all tactfully.

CNA training is fairly short and task-oriented. Even if a person didn't do well academically in school, they might do just fine as a CNA. The speaker at the graduation may have made it sound like if they could become a CNA then they'd have no problem just taking another 12 months of classes to become a LPN and that's not the case. LPN training is a LOT more rigorous than CNA training. As another stated, some might benefit from remedial coursework to strengthen their study skills before being able to successfully complete LPN training.

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What would the reaction been if she had said something similar at an LPN graduation about becoming RNs. I think it was just plain tasteless.

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What would the reaction been if she had said something similar at an LPN graduation about becoming RNs. I think it was just plain tasteless.

She commented specifically about certain CNAs she works with who would not be safe LVNs. That's it, plain and simple. Just like how we on here talk about RNs we know that are just plain and downright scary. She was not insulting CNAs or LVNs.

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