Representing yourself to the public as a nurse when you are not a nurse

Penguin67 · Oct 12, 2012

To answer in your own words "introduced himself as a "med tech"" so what exactly is the problem here? if he introduced himself as a "nurse" then that would be misrepresentation, if he says same thing as or like a nurse, he could just mean in terms of taking care of a patient, in terms of talking to a lay-person. I find this whole enquiry a bit snoopy and deceiving of the family member not to strike up an honest conversation and continue to say, "hey there's nurses or whatever in my family and I know the difference"... instead of like spying on his every move...I find that to be so immature. Maybe the guy would have further explained himself if they had just stated he seems to be doing nurse assistant work...he might he just said, thats right, I'm a like CNA or something to that end I assume or could have said "really my XYZ has her BSN from ABC university, where did you go to school?" I sure he would have not only shown interest in what you had to say but also futher clarify his duties maybe even say yeah I plan to go to ABC for my BSN too, what are the requirements?..etc....
When I was an EMT, because the service was so new to our country, many people we picked up in ambulance were continually calling us doctors, we did sometimes explain the difference hey we just here to take you to the doctor, but it gets to be a pain going through the explaination because they would call us doctors no matter what we say, I think its the same situation...he must have been asked that a million times...maybe the guy had aspiration to be a nurse one day, but we will never know, because the member as a patient just kept quiet and assumed he was misrepresenting himself...people are so honest nowadays...not! but honesty has to go both ways.[/quote
My family member was not snooping. Just curious what a med tech was and asked. Perhaps she did not continue the conversation because she was in the ER that night due to hemorrhaging from an oral surgery site secondary to being on coumadin. (And she was.) She felt terrible that night and was not in the mood to be following up on that title. I think it threw her because when I worked in a similar position two decades ago, it was called simply "nurse assistant".

Penguin67 · Oct 12, 2012

Seems like the real issue here is the tired old problem that Nursing has an image problem since the dawn of time. The lay public have no real idea of what nurses do (on TV, the doctors do all the nursing tasks anyway). We talk about scope of practice, but 95% of patients don't know where the line starts for one kind of role, and ends at another. Sometimes we don't either. On top of that, the lines move from one department to another, between specialties, between facilities, between states, and that's just for registered nurses. Also, the majority of patients don't seem to care about rankings of qualifications - they usually assume that someone ("They") is overseeing all that important stuff so that appropriately-qualified people in scrubs are doing any given thing as part of their care.
On my part, I would have to assume my tech had the best intentions. I generally try not to take offense (sometimes this does take effort) when I disagree with my coworkers: high dugeon only serves as a barrier to solve problems, and another problem I'll need help to solve is guaranteed to roll up on the next 5 minutes. And I can't blame anyone for wanting to shorthand a conversation loaded with excruciating technical & bureaucratic baggage. Having that conversation amongst ourselves is tricky enough, but ploughing though it with a patient while working and keeping all the balls in the air - no thanks.
On the other hand, avoiding talk about this question just prolongs the problem...
-at Meriwhen: LOVE your tagline quotes!

So agree with you, especially that last line!

ArrowRN, BSN, RN · Oct 14, 2012

I apologize if I came over as insensitive, that was not my intent. I just think in general, in USA in particular someone is always outthere watching for others to slip up, to make a mistake, then looking to sue or get the person a trouble for something that really seems to be just as honest mistake. Everyone can't be perfect but its the culture here.

Just to clarify...a med tech, as called today Medical Technologist, if the person was that, is more than just a nurse assistant. They get more training than CNAs. Some courses are up to 1 year long...which may include medical coding, EKG training and phelbotomy. Maybe that person trained to be a med tech but was underemployed as a nurse assistant when hired just to get experience, who really knows, and they just gave their higher title as to not to feel embarrassed. I really don't know because I was not there, but I always like to give someone the benefits of the doubt. In any situation I don't see it as a deliberate misrepresentation. People are not always "politically correct" when they talk, especially when they are busy and its a stranger they are talking too. It happens all the time. Now if that med tech did something that was out of their scope of work, well thats another can of beans.

Anyways it was nice talking to you all about this topic. I like engaging conversations...it help us to see how different people have different perspectives and we can learn to appreciate our differences...plus conversing keep us alive! :)

dandk1997RN, MSN, RN · Jun 6, 2013

I know this is an old thread, but a "med tech" in the state where I live is a licensed position, and is in no way or shape similar to a nursing assistant or the job described by the OP, which sounds similar to a CNA. A med tech here is a medical technologist, a person with a 4 year degree and licensure to practice laboratory medicine.

So...that explanation (med tech=nurse) wouldn't fly by any account at all in my state.