Hi all! I am not sure if I am posting this in the right area of the this site (I am a nub)
But I was talking to my girl friend and apparantly the new RN interns at the hospital dont want to do the basic cna stuff. This includes wiping butts, showering patients etc etc. Thoughts on this? I was pretty annoyed with what she told me. I got my cna and busted my butt off in clinicals ( I was the only male out of a class of 18 so I had to do my best) but its really annoying. According to there logic "There RN's so they SHOULDNT do the jobs that the CNA do"
Like me my gf was astonish by those words. I mean yes at times its disgusting but the job has to be done. My gf's mom is a charge nurse and she helps out her CNA's when they need it.
So what do you think? I personally dont mind wiping/ cleaning. The smells are gut wrenching at times but you do what you got to do.
Simple...the best nurses are usually the ones that were aides first...Its like on any job...how can you respect anybody...especially a "boss" if they are not willing to "get dirty". In my short time I have already seen so many nurses come and go because they were not willing to "help" and never gained any respect from their peers. Pretty simple formula...besides...not wanting to "get dirty" in health care??? What planet are these people living on? In fact some of the best Doctors I have ever seen started the same way! Besides my aunt is a physical therapist for 30 years and she still cleans more poop than a lot of nurses I have seen...Sadly, there will always be people that do the absolute bare minimum to get by...sadly...oftentimes, society does not differentiate as long as that "min" is complete...sad...Remember just because someone "passed" Med school/RN school etc...does not mean they are "tops" I personally would rather have the high achiever taking care of me than the "C" student who simply "passed". The "A" student is usually the one who will get dirty up to their elbows if need be!
There are some nurses that REFUSE to do "cna work". I've even seen nurses arguing with each other because one RN told another RN to clean her patient up because she was waiting for a doctor's call, and both of the CNAs were doing one on ones for that shift. It even goes beyond the "dirty work", and some nurses will try to avoid having contact with the patients as much as posible except for passing meds. There are some nurses that won't even interact with the patients for a decent amount of time and they'll try to ask the CNA asessment type questions about their patient. That doesn't even seem to be legal, but it happens. I wish that these people would stop getting into healthcare, and leave the real nursing care to the people who came to do their jobs.
It drives me insane when nurses forget that nursing assistants are there to help them do their work. It will always happen but ya know what? The nurses who don't routinely help are just gonna have it that much harder when their cna is tied up somewhere and they have an an alert patient have massive diarrhea requiring a bed strip who goes again once the beds all clean. I know of a hospital that went to an all RN staff. Instead of having 7 patents they have maybe 3-4 and they do it all. When it all comes down to it were here to help the patients and that should mean anything within our scope of practice. If you are able to do it you do it.
Okay, what you guys are talking won't fly as an RN, but will that attitude actually persist as a RN? Maybe, maybe not.
As a student I've definitely wiped some butts, but I'm not there to do CNA work. They're paying the CNA to do that job! I'm there to learn, and I already know how to wipe butts. If I'm busy learning about the pathophysiology of my patient's condition, or doing anything that an RN can do , but a CNA cannot (e. g. starting a line on another patient), then I'll let/ask the CNA to clean up my patient.
My motivation as a student in clinicals is to learn. I don't mind wiping butts either, but I do avoid it if I can. I know cleaning up patients is a reality of the working RN, but I won't mind if I'm getting paid.
I also get annoyed when the instructor would ask the charge nurse for some good patients for students, and I end up with the one c. diff patient on the floor. Gee thanks, f-king b.
Specializes in Nursing Education, CVICU, Float Pool.
I work as a CNA part time and have done so a year before I stated nursing school. I actually started my PRN hospital float pool job the day I turned 18. After I started nursing school I always wanted to remember where I would be coming from. I wanted to remember the good and bad nurses that worked with me. I entered nursing school with the desire and determination to be the nurse who can humble himself to do as much as I can for my pt.
In both my first year of nursing school, and now in my final year we have never been allowed to delegate to the NA's wherever we do clinicals at. We can ask them questions like where to hind things or what was the last time the pt urinated etc...... But we have to do vitals, adls, i&O etc.... Regardless if we have 1 or 3 pts. ( 3 pts is our limit for now) On our on or ask a classmate for help if you need it. Our program director said that she refused to let us graduate as needy nurses bc we won't always have the luxury of a CNA in many situations. Especially for those in my class who want to work in ICU. In all of our local ICUs no UAPs are utilized outside if the secretary role. Each nurse can have up to 4 critical pt. and if you need help with a bath, all nurses are expected to help each other.
Bathing a patient is the absolute way to assess them. You get to see their entire body, head to toe, and have a nice, long conversation with them while you're doing it. You find out things that you wouldn't normally find out about them. Things like family dynamics and home life. These can be very helpful for discharge planning and aftercare. Unfortunately, I rarely had time for this. I would set up my patients who could mostly bathe themselves and wash their backs and feet if they couldn't reach them. If I had a patient that had to go to the bathroom, I'm wasn't going to let lem have an incontinent episode because I was too busy to walk them to the bathroom.
With that being said, the CNAs are getting paid for a reason. If they were tied up in another room or short staffed, I picked up. Otherwise, I did my job and let them do theirs. If I was caught up with my work, which was rare, I would answer call bells. I'm not against getting my hands dirty at all, but I have a job to do too.
WOW this is absurd!!!!! first of all things like bathing and bathroom assistance help you to do the most important thing as a nurse ASSESS!! second I have done clinicals at some small hospitals that do not have CNAs or Techs. My first semester that is all we really did was "tech work" and I got to know my patients and could do a full physical assessment during. Any of the clinical instructors would send a student home right away for pulling something like this. Sounds like an attitude that needs an adjustment. :/
I agree with you 100%. These patients are obviously unable to perform these daily routines on their own and need someone to do it for them! If the new RN interns didn't want to do the dirty work they should have gone into a different profession. Those are the kind of people who do not truly have their heart set in nursing.
SaoirseRN
650 Posts
Where I work we don't have care aids on the acute floors. RNs and LPNs both act as primary care nurses and we do everything.