Nurses as secretaries

[SoundofMusic]

This is an idea that I feel is very unsound in nursing, and that is to place a nurse in the role of secretary for the day. Because our hospital has frozen hiring now, and because we can't keep a secretary to save our lives, now we as nurses are starting to be assigned as secretaries for the shift.

I feel this is just outright stupidity and a human resource management issue. You take a degreed person w/ nursing skills and make them work in an administrative role? Why? I mean -- you're basically paying a person almost $30 per hour to enter orders.

In this job market, there would be plenty of folks who would be willing to do the job temporarily, or as part of a pool, perhaps w/o benefits, or part time, or whatever. I don't get it. Isn't this a waste of money/human resources?

And then we have nurses on the flloor who can do it, and are very good at it -- and management loves them. Meanwhile, I can't do the job, because I feel it's sort of complicated. I mean -- you've got to know what your'e doing, especially on day shift -- so now I feel inadquate that I can't do the job! If I ask for a training day, they look at me like I'm nuts -- oh, you just jump in and do it -- and get trained on the way.

But I still feel it's an improper use of clinical personnel.

[pennyaline]

my response was to that particular post....with YOUR response i have to PRESUME that you are being purposefully obtuse....now, DEAR, tell you DO know the difference between ASSUME and PRESUME?

Just answer the question.

[pennyaline]

because YOU allow yourself to be used, literally/figuratively....DOESNT mean every/any one else should.

I fail to see how stating that I have worked more without secretaries than with them has anything to do with allowing myself to be used and encouraging others to be used. I am simply stating facts.

You are insisting on putting words in the mouth of the OP. This is disrespectful and juvenile.

I didn't put words into her mouth. She used her own words, and her statement that she doesn't feel she should have to do secretarial work anymore was right there.

I would guess you are of above average intellect, USE IT!

I am, and I do, and even so some people still get angry when I don't agree with them.

[SoundofMusic]

What is so darn hard about understanding why I don't want to be a secretary or to see my job turn into one where I am expected to routinely perform administrative functions?

I don't want to be truck driver either. Or a janitor. Nor do I want to be a food service worker, or a transporter.

I went to nursing school. To learn to take care of patients! To understand their conditions! To keep them alive -- whatever. I mean -- honestly, if this was part of the job, they sure didn't make it too clear in nursing school.

If I had wanted to be a secretary, I would have just walked on in and applied for the position. Would not have had to go through all this hassle to become a nurse.

Is wanting to do a higher level of work and get paid better for it so bad? I mean -- people do it all the time. It is really so evil? So selfish?

No. I don't want to work as the secretary -- really, ever. It's tedious. You sit a lot. You have to just do one task all day long. I don't enjoy it. Just want to be out with the patients. I don't feel it's "looking down" on the people who do it. Perhaps they, too, are working their way through school so they can one day become nurses themselves! Or, maybe they just prefer what they do. I think many of them do, actually.

Again - no one here seems to be addressing the fiscal realities of this yet. I'm waiting....

[morte, LPN, LVN]

What is so darn hard about understanding why I don't want to be a secretary or to see my job turn into one where I am expected to routinely perform administrative functions?

I don't want to be truck driver either. Or a janitor. Nor do I want to be a food service worker, or a transporter.

I went to nursing school. To learn to take care of patients! To understand their conditions! To keep them alive -- whatever. I mean -- honestly, if this was part of the job, they sure didn't make it too clear in nursing school.

If I had wanted to be a secretary, I would have just walked on in and applied for the position. Would not have had to go through all this hassle to become a nurse.

Is wanting to do a higher level of work and get paid better for it so bad? I mean -- people do it all the time. It is really so evil? So selfish?

No. I don't want to work as the secretary -- really, ever. It's tedious. You sit a lot. You have to just do one task all day long. I don't enjoy it. Just want to be out with the patients. I don't feel it's "looking down" on the people who do it. Perhaps they, too, are working their way through school so they can one day become nurses themselves! Or, maybe they just prefer what they do. I think many of them do, actually.

Again - no one here seems to be addressing the fiscal realities of this yet. I'm waiting....

1) They dont want to see your point, because they would have to admit it brings up a problem

2) And yes i have addressed the fiscal issue...in a small way, i stated that it takes much longer to enter orders than check them, the first is secretary/clerk, the second nursing....to have a nurse do the first is not fiscally logical...UNLESS.... and i think this is what you will be seeing...is that the intent is to have the nurse do it all and have a full patient load at the same time....you know the story about the camel and the tent...

[morte, LPN, LVN]

Just answer the question.

hmm really not pertinent to the discussion..

your point out that you "work without secretaries" inately implies that this is ok....acceptable, the way it should be.....your insistence that we should accept this treatment because of the economy is rather Stockholmish, dont you think?

[llg, PhD, RN]

Again - no one here seems to be addressing the fiscal realities of this yet. I'm waiting....

If the absence of a secretary is perceived by the management as a temporary problem, it may indeed be cheaper to pay a nurse to fulfill those duties than to hire "extra" secretaries to fill in temporary holes. Employees are expensive to recruit, bring on board, train, etc. They only have X number of secretaries in the budget. So, when one leaves, calls in sick, etc. they need a temporary fill-in. Paying a nurse may be the easiest, cheapest way to do that. If they would hire "extra" secretaries, what would those secretaries do when there were no holes to fill? That's very inefficient. The employer ends up having employees on the books that are consuming resources, but not actually contributing work as they wait for a hole to fill.

Asking a nurse to fill in prevents a nurse from being cancelled -- which generally makes nurses mad and leave, which is even more expensive than the secretary problem. They also leave that nurse on the unit, where she can be called to help as a nurse in an emergency.

If it happens all the time, then yes, they need to solve their secretary problem by fixing that job and improving their working conditions so that they can retain good secretaries. But for the ocassional fill-in ... it's cheaper to ask a a nurse to do it because they are already in the system and need minimal training to fill in.

[pennyaline]

hmm really not pertinent to the discussion..

your point out that you "work without secretaries" inately implies that this is ok....acceptable, the way it should be.....your insistence that we should accept this treatment because of the economy is rather Stockholmish, dont you think?

No. I'm saying that for years I, as well as many others here, have worked units without secretaries and done the clerical stuff ourselves. And I'm not saying that we should accept this treatment in any Stockholm Syndrome sense, and indeed it doesn't seem that you really understand what Stockholm Syndrome is and the personal dangers that its victims ignore to defend their captors -- perhaps you should stop using the analogy.

I'm saying we have to accept what has already happened, accept that we have the skills to do what they want and that is why they want us to do it, and accept that clerks and secretaries will not return until the financial picture changes. It has nothing to do with mindless willingness to take on more work, or any need to preserve a captor/captive relationship. It is all about working within reality until reality changes (and it always does) and the time is right again.

[pennyaline]

What is so darn hard about understanding why I don't want to be a secretary or to see my job turn into one where I am expected to routinely perform administrative functions...

Many of us have expressed that we understand why. We don't want to be secretaries either, but we are often asked to do what we know how to do and fill the clerk's position. And in some cases, when there is no alternative because there are no clerks or secretaries on shift or in employment, we do it as matter of course. It really isn't the end of the world.

Again - no one here seems to be addressing the fiscal realities of this yet. I'm waiting....

Waiting for what? We've addressed it, a few times. But because it doesn't support your argument, you won't see it.

[nursel56]

In addition to the far more stratified nature of nursing today, as evidenced by so many thread titles such as "don't want to do CNA work, can I still be a nurse?" there is an important psychological component to this issue. It is that someone who doesn't mind pitching in to help in a "pinch" situation, to do whatever it is on a unit that needs to be done so that things continue to run as smoothly as possible, builds trust, goodwill, and unit cohesiveness. Someone who indicates through direct statement, or indirect ("play secretary", "do the dirty work") that those things are beneath them, often irritate others at the least.

I don't think anyone thinks a nurse should work as a unit secretary for an extended period of time. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it doesn't make sense financially to have an RN work as a secretary indefinately. When a nurse manager pitches in and works bedside in a crunch, she is praised to the skies. When an ER doc makes it to the hospital in a snowstorm and drives past the CEO shoveling snow off the walkway to the lobby, you can bet he has earned that doc's respect and loyalty for good. I think that it what the issue is here. I have no desire to "punish" anyone because I had to wipe down metal cribs with disinfectant and fold cloth diapers myself in 1975.

Hope this thread is not closed. It's a really worthwhile topic.

[SharonH, RN]

If the absence of a secretary is perceived by the management as a temporary problem, it may indeed be cheaper to pay a nurse to fulfill those duties than to hire "extra" secretaries to fill in temporary holes. Employees are expensive to recruit, bring on board, train, etc. They only have X number of secretaries in the budget. So, when one leaves, calls in sick, etc. they need a temporary fill-in. Paying a nurse may be the easiest, cheapest way to do that. If they would hire "extra" secretaries, what would those secretaries do when there were no holes to fill? That's very inefficient. The employer ends up having employees on the books that are consuming resources, but not actually contributing work as they wait for a hole to fill.

Asking a nurse to fill in prevents a nurse from being cancelled -- which generally makes nurses mad and leave, which is even more expensive than the secretary problem. They also leave that nurse on the unit, where she can be called to help as a nurse in an emergency.

If it happens all the time, then yes, they need to solve their secretary problem by fixing that job and improving their working conditions so that they can retain good secretaries. But for the ocassional fill-in ... it's cheaper to ask a a nurse to do it because they are already in the system and need minimal training to fill in.

llg, personally I don't see a problem with a nurse filling in for a secretary in a pinch. Certainly, there have been nights when we did not have a clerk and we had to work without one. Working on busy med-surg floors, I've had to take off my own orders, stuff charts, answer phones and call lights even when we had a secretary. So it's not a question of can't or won't perform secretarial duties. I can clerk with the best of them.

But the OP states that their hospital has frozen hiring and nurses are required to rotate shifts as secretary, for what sounds like an indefinite period of time. And for me, that would be a problem because I would not want that to be my role. And I don't think that makes me a bad person or a snob or less than a nurse because I don't want to be a secretary.

[SandraCVRN]

It looks like you have had a problem with this for a while.

https://allnurses.com/first-year-after/didnt-know-id-297709.html

You can't wait for a unit clerk to get around to your orders, you are resoponsible to get tests done, meds given etc. 3 hrs from now when the doc calls and wants some results are you going to say, well he hasn't had that chest x-ray yet because the unit clerk hasn't gotten around to my pt yet...

Same difference if you are working as the clerk and helping your fellow nurses or doing your own work and yes it's your work.

[rn/writer, RN]

Just a reminder to keep the focus on the issues and not on other posters. The use of sarcasm is a dicey proposition in the best of times, but this is especially so in a heated thread. And calling another person "dear" and employing words like "twit" and "twittifying" don't usually improve the atmosphere.

Focusing on the topic and the issues is usually far more effective (and less likely to derail a thread) than trying to debate specific individuals. If your posts often contain the words "you" and "your", you may need to take a step back and concentrate more on what was said and less on who said it.