I heard a couple RNs talking at work the other night. They were really experienced RNs who mainly do vascular procedures like PICC lines throughout the hospital, and they were discussing a tech who wound up with a bloody nose after getting punched by a patient, AFTER having a urinal poured on her by a different patient(what a shift eh). Both had started out as Nurse assistants in a hospital over 30 years ago.
According to both of them, the patient care has gotten ten times harder than when they first started out in Nursing, and the workload for techs in particular has gotten a lot worse. They said they feel so bad for the techs they see on the floors and don't remember it ever being as bad as it is now.
I thought it was mainly just THIS hospital, which is notorious for being a great place to work as an RN and a horrible place to work as a tech(so say the RNs who once worked there as techs). Is this pretty much the case everywhere, has the job for techs just gotten much harder than it once was? Is this because of the bad economy and the fact there are so many more people applying for every tech job?
I feel like the attitude is the techs are looked at like horses, and they just ride them to death and switch to another one. A new tech I was orienteering worked in the corporate world before deciding to do a career change into nursing and work as a tech while in school. She was honest, and said the job seems so much more stressful and difficult than what she expected and worse than anything shed experienced before. I think the tech with the bloody nose freaked her out. I tried to comfort her by telling her I've never had a urinal poured on me and been punched in the face during the same shift.
