Nurses not doing assessments

Nurses General Nursing

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I am RN with 6 years experience and never have I seen anything like this. I am a new employee at a hospital in California with majority of the nurses are Filipino. I was on orientation and I had 4 different nurses that I worked with and not one of them did an assessment didn't listen to the heart, lungs, abdomen,didn't touch the patient with a stethoscope. I couldn't believe it. How can you chart and give report to the oncoming shift that the lung sounds were clear when you didn't even listen. I am happy that I was taught better and know better. My question is in other countries are they taught different because we all know here in the US that assessing your patient is the first thing you are taught to do in school.

Specializes in ER/Trauma.

I always do heart/lung/bowel assessments - irregardless of patient's chief complaint. It takes me an extra 30 seconds or a minute = total of extra 6-10 minutes for all my patients. I consider it time well spent - since most of my patients are post-ops, I cannot tell you how many times I've caught someone heading south and intervened before things became worse....

As to non-charting/non-assessing nurses:

I've come to dread following certain nurses on the floor - their assessments are shoddy and their charting worse. :uhoh21:

Not only is it potentially unsafe for the patients, it also means I have a lot of slack to pick up on!!

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Specializes in Nurses who are mentally sicked.
????? The only one contradicting anything here is you. Gucci wanted to know if nurses in other countries are taught assessments, not specifically Filipinos. By saying that she's worked with Filipinos who are great nurses, that took race out of the original question.

Read the first post and then the post #26, read and re-read then think a little be deeper...she was zeroed in on certain group. And to say, she had 6+ experience and she has never seem anything like that..Should she combined post#1 and post#26...the outcome is totally different...she basically answer her question in post#26...all you have to do is to go back and forth...and think....

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I am also originally from the UK...never taught how to listen to lungs and heart sounds - I also work with a french nurse who said the same about her training.

Highly recommend "Secrets Heart & Lung Sounds Workshop" audio CD with booklet by Dr Salvatore Mangione. Explains how to reason through the sounds you hear. Got mine through Amazon.

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Do you have doctors working on the units along with nurses?

Are they present all the time?

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Read the first post and then the post #26, read and re-read then think a little be deeper...she was zeroed in on certain group. And to say, she had 6+ experience and she has never seem anything like that..Should she combined post#1 and post#26...the outcome is totally different...she basically answer her question in post#26...all you have to do is to go back and forth...and think....

I did go back and forth and I'm not seeing it. She said that she is working with mostly Filipino nurses who are not assessing, and then her last question is:

My question is in other countries are they taught different because we all know here in the US that assessing your patient is the first thing you are taught to do in school.

In her second post she clarifies that she's asking about nurses trained in other countries, not here in the US.

What are you seeing that I'm not?

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Spacenurse the UK and Australian nurses were specifically asked in the different international forums and within this thread, what we were taught during our training and if we were taught to listen to heart and lungs, this is why you are getting the responses you are reading.

Thank you.

I know I am impressed with the skilled kind nurses I work with. They are from every continent except Antarctica. And England, Ireland, and New Zealand.

We have a common purpose and body of knowledge.

Nursing is very special as a caring profession.

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Specializes in Nurses who are mentally sicked.
I did go back and forth and I'm not seeing it. She said that she is working with mostly Filipino nurses who are not assessing, and then her last question is:

In her second post she clarifies that she's asking about nurses trained in other countries, not here in the US.

What are you seeing that I'm not?

read it again...since you time for now....

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I trained in New Zealand and was never taught to listen to heart/lung/bowel sounds. As stated by a UK RN, this is part of the Drs responsibility.

I now work in Australia and the same is true for Australian RNs, this is not taught in the nursing program.

I work in ED now and I have since learned to do a more thorough assessment so that when I come to the US I will at least have similar skills to the US trained RNs.

I feel my nursing training was sadly lacking in many clinical skill areas and it has taken me many years to upgrade my skills as an RN who is a professional rather than simply a 'helper' to a Dr.

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read it again...since you time for now....

Huh? That didn't make sense.

Anyway.....I guess I'm just super dense, because I've read both posts several times and I don't see what you're seeing. She specifically asked if Philippine nursing schools teach assessments because the Filipino nurses she's working with don't do them. How is that zeroing in on a race? She's asking about a specific country because that's where her coworkers are from.

Never mind. I guess old age has fried these brain cells.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.
Do you have doctors working on the units along with nurses?

Are they present all the time?

In my experience on the wards I worked on monday to friday9-5 doctors where present on the ward out of these hours there was an on call team and they would always visit the ward to check on patients, informed on any patients there was any worries about and then available anytime after that. The only difference I would see regarding doctors being present was on the medical admission unit where a doctor was present 24/7 but that was generally due to the amount of admissions we would be getting

On average I would find 4-5 staff for 28-36 patients dependig on size of the ward but common for minimal staff on weekends (2 RN and 2-3 aides/health care workers)

Highly recommend "Secrets Heart & Lung Sounds Workshop" audio CD with booklet by Dr Salvatore Mangione. Explains how to reason through the sounds you hear. Got mine through Amazon.

thanks for this, next stop amazon :)

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Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.
So on a ward in the UK you might have 18 patients? WIth how much help? I know I've unfortunately had 15 on a shift with 1/2 tech (care provider, CNA) and 1/2 LPN (aka enrolled nurse in OZ & UK) and they all got assessed. Now given that was on 7pm-7am and not days. Days (usually) was no more than 10 with an LPN (enrolled) to give meds to the 10 or share a team 50/50. Here an LPN cannot assess but they can "collect information" that the RN then assesses.

THe surgical admission ward that I work on to 18 patients there will be 3 RN's and 2 support workers on an early shift (7-3) and 2 RN's and 1 support on the afternoon. DUring the night there will be 1 RN and 2 Support workers, but 18 patients is only half of the ward so there will be another qualified with the same patient load on the other side of the ward.

THere are not doctors perminatley on the ward they are available via a bleep system but they could be in theatre, clinics, radiology when you need them. There is also a lack of junior doctors because of the European working time directive and the reduction in junior doctors working hours. I believe that this is going to reduce again later this year meaning even less docs about. ALthough there is alway an on call doctor if you patients doctor is not on duty.

I have to be totally honest here too, on the surgical unit I work the doctors dont listen to heart and lung sounds daily - they will examine and listen to abdomens but only tend to listen to heart and lungs on admission and if there are clinical concerns about the patient (such as raised inflammatory markers, pyrexia lethargy)

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Specializes in ICU, Coronary ward.

I am A Filipino nurse too and still in the process of becoming a registered nurse in america or anywhere in the world... I feel sorry for the poor attitude that my co-filipinos have exhibited there... Here in the Philippines we are taught the same nursing process as you have in america. We are taught of the value of therapeutic communication... So when it comes to skills and knowledge we are not that different. It was the work attitude of the nurses there that was different... Still, I believe that those nurses are only the few compared to the many Filipino nurses all over the world who conscientiously care for their clients...

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