Not "real nurses"

[reussir1]

I was told by another nurse that nurses in LTC are not "real nurses" and that if I wanted to actually use any of my skills, I should work at a hospital. I haven't started working yet, but how could this even be close to true? At my local hospital, the Med/Surg nurses have a max of 4 patients, while the nursing home I used to work at had 2 nurses for 90 patients. I know they don't always need the level of care med surg patients do, but does that mean LTC nurses are less worthy?

[AngelicDarkness]

I've seen this thread come up for just about every speciality in nursing. No nurse is more important than another. Each type of nursing makes up the whole of nursing in general. There is no such thing as "not real nursing".

[Forever Sunshine, ASN, RN]

LTC nurses are real nurses. We are doing everything an acute care nurse is doing... only with 4x more patients.

[caliotter3]

When a nurse in an LTC setting puts "RN" or "LPN" after their name while doing their job, they are a real nurse.

[chicookie, BSN, RN]

I don't pass out meds or take vitals, and I am a real nurse.

An OR nurse does not do typical procedures that a nurse on a med surg floor does but they are real nurses.

A case manger does not perform bed side care, but they are real nurses.

A correctional nurse does not work at a hospital but they are real nurses.

The setting, the procedures you do or do not do, your responsibilities, they don't matter.

You work as a nurse, you sign your name as a nurse, you get paid as a nurse. Then guess what? you are a real nurse.

Kind of like the if it was walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, then guess what? its a duck not a weapon of mass destruction.

Don't listen to those people, its plain out ignorance.

No nurse is less worthy than the others. We are all awesome equally.

[gentlegiver, ASN, LPN, RN]

So often this has come up. It's kinda like the "Nurse eating thier young" threads. The answer is simple & basic....

1. did you graduate from a Nursing school?

2. did you pass the NCLEX?

If you answer yes to both of those questions, then I would say your a Nurse! LTC is a specialty, just like ICU, L&D, Med Surg, ONC, etc..... Not everyone can cut it. I work LTC, I would never be able to handle Peds, ICU, or any other number of specialties out there. We all have our nitch.

I believe the idea that LTC Nurses don't actually do Nursing comes from many decades ago when LTC was called Nursing Homes and everyone who came there, knew they were there to die. So much has changed since then. We handle pre & post op, cronic illness, respite care, rehab, and yes end of life care and so many other health care issues. My patients range in age from thier 30's to 104 yrs old (and going strong!) We teach people to take care of themselves so they can go home and live thier lives the best way they can. Our assessment and time management skills have to be honed to a fine point at all times. So yes, I'd say we are definately "NURSES"!

[JulieCVICURN, BSN, RN]

When I first switched to Informatics, my kids were disappointed that I was no longer a real nurse. I explained to them that Informatics saves lives in a different way, by minimizing medication errors, etc., and they got it. But they're kids.

The competitition to be called a "real" nurse is just more evidence of people knocking down others to make themselves feel superior. I have always said that an ICU nurse is not better than a Med Surg nurse and a Med Surg nurse is not better than an LTC nurse, and so on. We all find our niche in different places, and the place where your strength lies is the place where you are the best nurse you can be.

I have heard from more than one nursing instructor and from some doctors that LTC nurses need to have the best assessment skills of all. They don't have monitors on their patients and they have to be able to tell when someone is going south, even if that person generally looks like crap all the time. LTC nurses have to have great instincts about their patients, and goodness knows you must have the patience of a saint to work with SOME of that population.

If it makes you feel any better, 4 of the best CVICU RN's I've ever known, the very people I would want recovering me or my family if anyone had CABG, recently transferred to our LTC facility. By choice. I can't imagine they would do that if they didn't consider it real nursing.

[bethisonline]

nursing practice is almost as diversified as the people we care for. Just because someone does not work in the ICU or ER does not mean a darn thing. Let's

say we put an ICU nurse on med/surg? We all know that they may have a difficult time functioning. Or how about we put a labor and delivery nurse on med/surg

and certainly there would be issues. A med/surg nurse may not function well

in the labor and delivery area as well. Y'all need to realize that with each area of

care there is special knowledge needed in order to function properly. Put an ER nurse on med/surg that has no prior knowledge or experience on med/surg and

he/she will have difficuty and vice/versa. Some nurses get big headed and think they know it all. WRONG ANSWER! Just when you think you know it all

put up the red flag and giveyourself a warning.

[txspadequeenRN, BSN, RN]

i had been a ltc a long time before i made the switch to hospital nursing. ltc and the hospital environment are 2 completely different animals that require different skill sets. for anyone that does not believe that ltc do not practice real nursing...i urge you to do a week on the floor of a busy nursing home:yeah:.

i greatly sharpened all my clinical skills when i went to the hospital . in ltc we just dont have people with central lines and complex abt everyday . nor do we drop ng tubes frequently or hang blood. however, one big difference that i will note is that in the hospital environment if i have a issue with a patient regardless of what that issue is ...i have back up . there is respiratory, wound care other rn's always a doc near by to assist with these issues....in ltc these nurses are on there own 90% of the time. this makes the ltc nurse be on her toes in order to recognize problems early on. dont fool yourself elderly patients in whatever setting are fragile and their condition can rapidly deteriorate within a short period of time. the ltc nurse is often found chasin down doctors and making recommendations for treatment because after all they know the patient best. basically the ltc is pretty much on her own assessing and sifting out problems as the arise....another thing that i took from ltc to the hospital is excellent time management skills. if you don't have your **** together in ltc you will not be able to get the job done. 30 patient, families, med pass and all the state regulations that go with doing the ltc job forces one to have the sharpest time management skills:yeah:.....to say that ltc nurses are not real is absolutely ridiculous ...my opinion is that if you can hang in ltc for any length of time then you pretty much can hash it anywhere.....

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

I seriously think we should all walk a mike in each others' clogs :).

When I tell people I teach nursing, half the replies are "are you a nurse"? Hmmmm...

I love when people ask me if you get paid more to work in the ER or ICU. obviously the public's perception is that those nurses are more importnant.

When I graduated, I could only find work in home care. I didn't think I was a "real nurse", b/c I wasn't in the hospital. Silly, young, naive me. That's when I thought it was all about skills (something the students of today still think... Not all though).

[SitcomNurse, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN]

I have had nurses come from their specialty in the hospital and go running back to where they were...because a LTC enviornment is NOT a place to retire to. They couldnt hack it, and went runnin.

LTC, as previously said, is its own specialty. Thank God I do not do Peds, or Tele, or OB.. I couldnt, after all these years doing LTC which included:

POst surgical, post MVA, post fracture, picc lines hemo and peritoneal dialysis, hospice and short term and long term rehab. case management, greif counseling, 2 surveys a year due to our specialty enviornment/clientele, emergency medicine, crash codes and comfort care.

Id like to see that nurse who said it to you fill the respiratory unit I ran for one day.

Until then, she is just ignorant and deserves to be ignored.

[AgentBeast, MSN, RN]

Not really any different than the "You're not a real man real men don't do X" statement. You can basically do it for anything. You're not a real (insert Y) real Y's don't do (insert X). You can even do it about Allnurses.com threads. This isn't a real Allnurses.com thread. Real Allnurses.com threads have lots of flaming. At the end of the day though who gives a crap? You show up, do your job, and then you get paid.