Nurse tech position while in school

It's excellent experience that you won't get in school and I highly recommend getting a job like that in an area that interests you! Your going to learn and be able to do a lot.

Every hospital call it something different it seems (tech, extern, etc) but I work as a Nurse Partner in an ICU. I do everything the RN does with supervision. I LOVE my job :)

I have started IVs, drawn and flushed (saline and hep locks) from central and art lines, sterile dressings (art and central lines mainly), assessments, dropped NG tubes, suctioning, bagged during codes, accuchecks, blood draws for labs and istat, Foleys and straight caths, wound care, feeds, vent stuff, just everything!

Once I have been checked off I don't have to be supervised for certain things....but things like central line and art line sterile dressing changes (since some MDs don't suture the lines in place) I like the RN to be near by, any meds I give (subQ shots mainly) an RN has to be right there with me.

At my nurse tech job I am allowed to do all the skills I have checked off on at nursing school in addition to the tasks of the CNA's. However, I haven't had nearly as many opportunities to practice nursing skills as the recruiter led me to believe. Most of my time is taken up with vitals, bedpans, transfers, linen changes, feedings, and other aid work.

Still, I look at it as a learning experience. I am so much more comfortable at my clinicals because I am now accustomed to going into patient rooms and giving care.

Okay cool thanks for the info.. I have been checked off on all the skills and would love to have the extra time that I dont get in a 8 hour clinical day.. I just didnt want to do straight CNA work.. I want to do more so I can practice my skills.. still even if I can watch nurses do things that can be a learning experience as well.. well thanks and good luck to all of you.

Like everyone said before me, basically you perform most skills that you you've been checked off in class for. My hospital, and most -if not all- in Texas, do not allow you to give any meds whether or not the nurse is with you. The tech's at my hospital do everything a CNA does, and act more and more as an RN with less CNA duties as they learn more skills. For example, someone who just finished their first semester will do mainly CNA duties, but can also insert foleys and NG tubes. Towards the end of the RN program, you see most of them with a few of their own patients, but still cant give meds. They will perform their own CNA duties on those patients, but also perform what they were checked off on in school. The hospital likes them a lot in the ICU and ER... but towards the end of the program they usually stick you in a place that you would like to work when you pass your boards in hopes that you'll stay with them.