ChristinaLPN

Hello to you all. I am an LPN, I work in the ER by my home. I work 12.5 hour shifts and spend most of my day doing the work the RN's dont want to do, or can't be bothered doing. I also hear constant remarks like LPN's are little pretend nurses and so forth. I run from 7a-7p, I give the majority of the meds, I do the majority of the wound care, I put the patients on the monitor, get them in their gown, put in the foley's.....sounds like complaining yes it does but understand this. Each RN in my ER has a district of 3 rooms-2 pts per room, thats 6 patients. 99.9% of the time, the ER is an ICU holding ward, as the LPN, I am not supposed to take care of an ICU patient, I also can not hang blood, push IV meds, access a port or do an initial assessment. My LPN district is 3 RN districts, therefore, I have 3 RN's to assist, 9 rooms which equals 18 patients. The 3 RN's I am with all need me to help them, inevitably at the same time. God forbid Im busy with another nurse and so and so is looking for me, then they run to the charge nurse and say that Im not helping. If any of you have LPN's that work in your ER, I hope you treat them better than I get treated at my job.

Does anyone know if there is an online lpn to rn transition course? my college nursing dept chairperson tells me today......oh, theres only 20 seats in the class and it is full, and there is a waiting list for next spring (class only offered in spring) and go figure you need this class completed before you can apply for the LPN to RN accelerated Nursing program at this school. Please, I'll be 90 by the time I get in lol. Any suggestions??

Hi, I work in the ER of my local community hospital. The facility never had LPN's in the ER before so 2 years ago they started a pilot program and hired 8 of us. We were on orientation for 3 months and after orientation was over, 4 of the LPN's that were still scared to death wre sent to the floors for med-surg exp. 3 of them quit and the last one moved away, we now have 4 of us with supposedly 3 more on the way and were treated not the best. The RN's in the Emergency Dept really at first didnt know what to do with us, no one really knew our job description including the LPN's, first we could do this, then we couldnt, then the nrse manager would look into things and never get back to us.....its nuts. As far as what I do now (I'm there 2 years) I start IV's, draw bloods, pass meds, assist doctors and surgeons at the bedside, get patients on the cardiac monitors, read and interpret EKG's and I assist in the Trauma room when needed for CPR and so forth. I did take and pass the ACLS class and I inquired about taking TNCC but was told no because i can not push IV drugs, I also in my facility can not hang blood, do an initial assessment or access ports. We were just allowed to discharge patients WHOOPIE!! anyway, hope this helped!!

Are you kidding me? 1st of all as an employee of that particular facility it is disgusting that you were treated in that manner, 2nd of all, patients should not be treated in that manor period. HIPPA does not require the door to be closed unless the practitioner is in the room discussing medical information with you and pain mamagement is supposed to be the big thing these days with JCAHO, shame on them! and I hope your feeling better!