Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
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In some assisted-living facilities in my state, unlicensed caregivers can become medication assistants practically off the streets. I'm not joking. An ALF can hire someone who's never even had CNA training, give them three days' orientation, and turn 'em loose in the med room. They're paid $7.50 an hour to pass meds to as many as 50 residents, and they give everything except IVs and IMs....they even draw up and administer INSULIN!! They also give PRN narcotics, antipsychotics, and anxiolytics.
This is why I didn't stay with ALF nursing very long.......I worked hard for my license, and I'd like to keep it. :stone
I just left an ALF a couple days ago after only two months. I felt like every day I was squeezing my license tighter. Mgmt. was hiring people as med techs and their training was done through other "experienced" med techs . The med errors were horrifying not to mention the fact that they were responsible for narcs--and 60 percocet went missing! The liability is just too high, and I had to leave to protect my license.
Man, thats horrible. In no way acceptable under any circumstances.
I've been a CNA for 14 years (I took a CNA class for 6 months then passed a state test and my name is on the IL board website for my CNA licence) and the last 10 being mostly hospital nursing. LPNs have to works as CNAs where I work. And theirs quite a few LPNs working as CNAs there. And they don't make any more money than I do or do, or get to do any work above the CNA role. Hospitals here in IL just don't hire them. At my hospital if your not the RN, your not crap. And they make it well felt. The nurses talk to us like dogs basicaly. But I make good money and I like the patients and I'm in school for my RN so I take it. Why do I do it? I do what I have to do for me. I am an assistant to the nurse and the patient at all times at work. I pass no meds, and never would. Our hospital does not use med techs but I hear local nursing homes do and they are paying them around $10 an hour. That would be a large pay cut for me. But what I am seeing in our hospital is hiring people off the street with no training or from other departments (ie, patient transport) and after 1 week of working with a CNA they are now a PCT and working the floor. Is that even legal? I was shocked. I guess they are desperate for CNAs. I just don't know anyone that sticks with that job for long. They get burnt out or hate being treated like crap so if they stay more than a year, it's shocking. I did work at one doctors office where the MA (just a person off the street with NO edcuation past high school) told everyone she was an RN and had patients call her nurse and signed all paperwork SN I guess meaing student nurse but she was never in ANY program.
I think the med techs off the street is a BAD idea all the way around.
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
several hospitals in my area are phasing out LVNs right now. I am still currently an LVN, so it makes it tough (especially since there's been a lot of changes--for the worse--at my current job & I'd like to leave), but I will be graduating in the spring with my RN, so I am just waiting it out for now.
I am beginning to hear about these things lately, just as I'm about to graduate from LPN school. Our sister hospital just went Magnet Status, and now, our facility wants to do the same, and I am hearing that this may mean that they'll want more RNs in their clinics then Practical Nurses. I'm really not sure if I want to become an RN, so, I do hope that this doesn't happen within the near future. What state are you living in?
Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
No need to "phase out", but to fully enjoy the site, please take advantage of the many different forums and conversations going on here. WE have a lot going on here besides controversial, uncomfortable or hot topics! Welcome to allnurses.com. Hope to hear more from and about you, pagandeva!
Thank you for forgiving my mistake, and double thanks for the nice welcome to your community. I am about to graduate from LPN school shortly, in fact, I have one week left and next week is finals. I am anxious, but ready to do it (nervous about taking the state boards, though).
I am beginning to hear about these things lately, just as I'm about to graduate from LPN school. Our sister hospital just went Magnet Status, and now, our facility wants to do the same, and I am hearing that this may mean that they'll want more RNs in their clinics then Practical Nurses. I'm really not sure if I want to become an RN, so, I do hope that this doesn't happen within the near future. What state are you living in?
As an owner of a nurse staffing agency I can assure you that in the region I am in LVN's are not being phased out. So facilities use only RN's but are critically short of nurses the majority of the time. The LVN's I employ are highly competent and qualified to do their jobs. For the most part I have more complaints about my RN's than my LVN's. My take is that it is a job security reaction from RN's in management positions. If they let the LVN's in then their jobs are not as secure. It cannot be explained with quality of care. I am also an LVN.
...That is just another reason nurses (RN's and Lpn's) need to band together and form unions and quit being the ones who are used and abused! There is still to much animosity between the two groups....
I am an LPN going for my RN license. I have not seen evidence of this divide, but I have heard of it spoken of previously.
I wonder about it sometimes b/c I can't understand why any RN would not want an LPN beside her to share the load as it were.
Nursing has come a long way from the days of sweeping and mopping floors and bringing in a scuttle of coal and whittling nibs on quills.
With the advancement of medicine so too has come the need for people who are specially trained to do different things all the time. For example respiratory thereapy-former Nursing function. Rad-techs-former nursing function. Housekeeping- former Nursing function. We have been giving nursing duties over to specialists of one sort or another ever since the turn of the last century. Because you can't pay people who have our kind of education enough to stay at the bedside. And because a college education is expensive and time consuming. And because not everyone can hack the stress of nursing school. And because not everyone is smart enough or quick enough to be a nurse.
What is nursing today? Are we no more than pill passers or paper pushers?
Nurses DO a lot of things. What we do best is care and critical think and apply the nursing process. Yeah there are technical skills involved and rationales for what we do based on scientific study and evidence based practice yada yada yada, but we nurses CARE.
Med-techs need to have the same kinds of education requirements and it needs to be their butts on the line b/c otherwise, they just don't CARE about what they are doing. Most of the time, they are someone who has been laid off at something else and just need a job to feed the kids and take care of basic necessities. Most administrations are taking advantage of the situation and not CARING about anything except the bottom line. They don't even care about the UAP.
By the way, I care for 32 patients, along with 6 nursing aides (CNA's) I pass all the meds, do all the treatments, dressing changes and assessments and the charting.... The aides take vital signs, get my accu checks,daily weights, and do hygeine. The nursing home/rehab facility that I currently work for does not employ UAP's that I know of and my DON wouldn't stand for it. Neither would the CNA's Union.
A CMA is a certified medical assistant and they can NOT pass med's they can administer injections. If you all are talking about a medication aide the label for that position is QMA qualified medication aide. A QMA can only pass specific medications and have to have what they call a 40 hour license and have gone through training and have to take a state board. I just wanted to clarify because people can get confused and think you are talking about a medical assistant.
A physician does has to be present when giving the injections at least that is how it is in California and Nebraska. A Medical assistant can not do it without someone licensed standing next to them. The licensed professional adds the dose and them hands over the needle to the CMA. Why they can not just do it themselves if they have to start the process is beyond me?
. The med errors were horrifying not to mention the fact that they were responsible for narcs--and 60 percocet went missing! The liability is just too high, and I had to leave to protect my license.
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
No need to "phase out", but to fully enjoy the site, please take advantage of the many different forums and conversations going on here. WE have a lot going on here besides controversial, uncomfortable or hot topics! Welcome to allnurses.com. Hope to hear more from and about you, pagandeva!