lindseylpn

The only place I've ever worked where the nurses exclusively took the vitals is a group home and that's because, the support staff aren't CNAs. That's not the norm in most places though. CNAs almost always get routine vitals, it's probably the most delegated task. Usually the CNA gets the vitals, gives them to the nurse and the nurse charts them, in my experience. Just because the CNA got the vitals instead of the nurse doesn't mean it wasn't the nurses task to do, the nurse just delegated that task to the CNA which is legally within her right to do. If your facility is different then that's their policy and not a state thing. If you question the state, I doubt they are going to know your facility's unique policies. The appropriate place to ask the question would be your immediate supervisor. You should probably look up the rules of delegation in your state too as a refresher. Also, if a CNA is delegated a task (within their scope of course) and they refuse then that is insubordination and can result in a write up or even termination so, I'd definitely find out your facilities policy for sure before you were to do that. Your facility should have a policy and procedures book laying around that might give you the answer you're looking for. If you can't find the answer there then ask your supervisors.

I guess it depends on your end goal, cost, pay and what kind of facility you want to work at. Usually when someone becomes an MA that it's their end goal as there really isn't any upward mobility and you can't transition to a nurse. MAs usually only work in clinics as well, I've known a few to work in the hospital but, they're just utilized as a tech or phlebotomist. LPNs have a much larger scope of practice and can work in all areas of healthcare, LTC/SNF, ALF, home health, private duty, corrections, occupational health, insurance, clinics, etc and even some hospitals. Upward mobility is easier for an LPN too, there are LPN to RN transition programs. Depending on your area/state too LPNs can move upward in their place of employment without becoming an RN, they can be charge nurses, unit supervisors and even DONs in ALF facilities. Schooling for MA can be much shorter though if that's a factor for you, in my area it's a 5 month program, 3 days a week and the LPN program is 12 months, 5 days a week. There are also diploma and associate degree (1-2 year) MA programs but, if you're going to go for an associate degree just go for your RN instead. As for pay, LPNs in my area make quite a bit more than MAs, $5-$10 more an hour I'd say. The last time I worked in a clinic, the LPNs made around $5 more per hour. I think it's like that in most areas. I'd make a pro con list and ask yourself these questions: What's your end goal? Do you care about upward mobility or want to be a nurse in the future? What kind of facility do you want to work in, are you okay with just clinic work or do you want to be able to work in a more wide variety of facilities? Is school time an option, do you want a quick program or can you devote yourself to a longer one? Is pay important to you? Pay can vary wildly in different areas. How important is scope of practice to you? Look at job postings too, see what is more in demand in your area. In my area LPNs are much more in demand but, I know that's not the case in all areas. Look at job duties and pay if that's included in the job posting. Also, do a search here on allnurses. These questions pop up from time to time and I'm sure there are some good older threads on the subject. There are pros and cons to each profession I'm sure. I know there are some comments on older threads where people have been both an MA and an LPN so, those might help you more. Good luck with your decision.

I had the same surgery several years ago, I had it done on Tuesday and returned to work Saturday. I wore Crocs and would switch to a loose open toed house shoe when I could, those were the only shoes that didn't hurt.

I "think" I might be able to explain the whole $20 per shift thing. I'm in an area that has a lot of residential group homes and I work at a group home myself. In my area at some agencies they have what we call "sleep shifts". What op was describing saying that they work at an apartment and they only get paid and chart from 9p-12a then don't get paid for they rest of the night sounds exactly like a "sleep shift". It's what happens when the state decides that a client/patient doesn't need care at night so, they don't get funding but.. they still can't be left alone. How it works is, the caregiver will come in and work the funded hours 9p-12a etc and then can sleep or do what they want during the unfunded hours but, can't leave. If they have to get up and do any work for their client/patient then they log that time on their time sheet. Unfortunately, this is totally legal in the group home world (at least in my state). These shifts are hard to staff of course and better agencies will offer incentives to staff these shifts, like offering a differential during the funded hours. Some agencies will move the client/patient in with a roommate that has night time funding so, they can share a caregiver (what my agency does) if family will allow it. I may be wrong but, that sounds like the job op was describing. Personally, I wouldn't want to work these shifts if I were a caregiver although I've heard some people like them. Sorry, I got off topic here about the snow 🙂 but, I thought I might be able to explain (my theory) on why someone might only be getting paid $20 for a shift. If I was right about the type of shift op was working I know it's hard to find a replacement, I hope the previous shift didn't end up having to work 24 hours ☹️.

These are plenty of options other than a nursing home- assisted living, private duty, home health, hospice, corrections, psych, group homes, treatment facilities, insurance assessments, occupational health, flu clinics, school nursing, military hospitals/clinics, the VA, state run facilities, clinics and even some hospitals. If there's over saturation or there are location issues, rural areas and states with a wide scope of practice employ plenty of LPNs. In my area LPNs are utilized in all areas of healthcare, including hospitals. You may have to increase your search radius. Realistically, cold calling clinics to ask if they employ LPNs is not going to find you a job. Work on your resume, do a job search for facilities that have actual open positions and start putting in applications. Search for interview tips and frequently asked questions and practice your answers. Glassdoor and Indeed are good places to start, you can even find company reviews, salaries and interview questions on those sites as well as job postings. Good Luck with your search, I hope you find something soon.

1. Yep, in my experience most nursing jobs don't let the nurses leave the premises for lunch. The only place I've worked where you could leave at lunch was at a Drs office and that's because, the whole clinic shut down for lunch. 2. That's going to depend on your state and company policy. I don't think paid breaks are a legal requirement. Every place I've ever worked had different lunch/break policies. Some places had an unpaid lunch plus some paid breaks (1 or 2 breaks lasting 10 or 15 minutes) , other places only had an unpaid lunch break (30 minutes or 1 hour). I work at a residential group home now and I'm the only nurse, I have no scheduled breaks nor am I docked for an unpaid lunch. I can eat whenever I have the chance though. 3. That seems illegal to me too, I'd probably talk to someone about that.. I've worked at a job where we never got time to take a lunch, we were told repeatedly that we needed to take one but, there was no chance to. To my knowledge they never docked me for a lunch without my knowledge but, I never really paid that much attention to my check stub. I definitely will now though if I ever work a job where lunch is impossible to take..

The question was simple yes but, the answer really isn't simple as different facilities will have different policies. You need to ask what the policy is at your facility but, they may not even have one. Nowhere I've worked to my knowledge has had a policy regarding how quickly a prn must be given. I mean in a perfect world I would say as soon as possible after a patient asks for it but, sometimes that's just not how things go. Especially at night when there's a skeleton crew. Example A: The patient asks for their prn during the CNAs round at 3am. The nurse is sitting at the nurses station charting. The CNA finishes toileting the patient around 3:10am, walks down the hallway and let's the nurse know that they requested a prn. The nurse gets the med ready and takes it to the patient around 3:15am, speaks with the patient for a few minutes, signs the mar and charts the med given at 3:20am. Example B: Patient asks for a prn during the CNAs round at 3am. She tells the patient she'll let the nurse know. The nurse is on lunch or otherwise attending to something else and isn't readily available. The nurse returns back to the nurses station at 3:20am and the CNA is toileting another patient and finishes at 3:30am. The next time the CNA and nurse cross paths is at 3:40am and the nurse is in the process of changing a catheter, dressing etc and the CNA let's her know that 2 people requested a prn while she was doing her round, 1 person has started running a fever and another person has an abrasion/skin tear that needs to be looked at. The nurse finishes what she's doing at 4am and then goes to asses the patient with the fever and then the patient with the abrasion. It's now 4:20am and the nurse starts working on the prns requested, she gives the first person's prn at 4:25am, signs the mar and charts the med as given, then gives the 2nd person's prn at 4:30am like, signs the mar and charts the med as given. If the patient is always requesting a prn the minute it's available to be given again then I'd ask the Dr to reevaluate the patient and medicine. Maybe the med needs to be scheduled instead of prn or a different med needs to be given etc.

I just bought 2 pairs from zenni optical, $17.50 a piece. That's frames and lenses with anti glare coating. Shipping and all I paid $54. I bought a smaller pair and a slightly larger pair. The smaller pair fit perfectly but, for the larger pair I bought some of those little silicone sticky nose pad things off of Amazon and they don't slide down at all now. My only complaint is they attract fingerprints and smears way worse than my previous pair, I recommend getting their "anti glare, anti fingerprint" lenses if that's something that would bother you.

I once had a co-worker that would become irate when someone else would wear something close to the same outfit as her. "Oh, nurse so and so you just had to wear blue scrubs today didn't you?! You just knew I'd be wearing blue, are you going to copy me again tomorrow?! Should I plan out my outfit now?! You must be staking me to see what I wear! Then she'd stomp around and slam things all angrily and be rude to that person all day. I sure hope she's working somewhere with assigned color coded scrubs now, lol. Some people are just weird.

The Goodwill in my area hires LPNs to teach CNA classes, I see the job ads every so often. So maybe check with Goodwill or an equivalent that does job training? The community college, tech college and several nursing homes in my area also hold classes. I'm not sure how it's done/who teaches at nursing homes though?

The direct care staff can do PO meds if they've been thru their med tech training but, we still do the things like meds/feedings thru a g-tube, trach care and injections. I'm not sure how things are delegated on a state by state basis but, this is how things are usually done. The direct care staff I work with does PO meds, minor treatments, topical meds and oral suctioning with a Yankauer. We do everything else nursing related. My facility has a nurse on site 15 hours a day and on-call the rest of the day.

I once had a co-worker who told everyone that would listen that I should have to work every weekend and holiday because, I don't have children. I already worked every Saturday and Sunday but, every few months she'd ask me to switch schedules to take all her Friday shifts as well. Every holiday she was scheduled she'd ask me to work for her too. I'd always refuse and she'd huff and puff, be hateful and bad-mouth me to everyone for weeks. I was going thru unsuccessful fertility treatments at the time and really struggling with my infertility. The constant reminder from this co-worker that I was childless was very disheartening. I don't mind the occasional switching of a shift or someone leaving early because, of their children (or whatever). We all have emergencies. I've worked with several people who use the "I have kids" excuse for everything though, like the co-worker I was talking about. Her kids were grown and didn't even live at home but, she'd used the "I have kids" statement and lots of fussing to get out of undesirable shifts for years. Just because, someone's family might only be parents, nieces, nephews, siblings or even just pets, it doesn't mean their family is any less important to them. Statements like "You'll never understand until you have kids." can be hurtful without meaning to for some people. You never really know why someone doesn't have children. We all deserve to have our time off and holidays regardless of our circumstances.

If I were you, I think first I'd try to refinance the car. 18% seems like an insane interest rate. I just looked up some going interest rates and the quote for Fair credit was around 7.5% to below 3% for excellent credit, although I think interest rates might be a little higher when refinancing. If you've paid your payment on time since owning the car I'm sure your credit has improved. I'm sure you could get a better financing deal. I've refinanced a car before but, it's been so long ago I don't remember the process. All I remember was my payment went down around $80 I think. I'd also get quotes from every single insurance company. I pay $150 month for full coverage on 2 cars (Nationwide). My husband's even had a wreck without insurance before we were married and we had to get some lower tier insurance for quite a few years (the general) and still paid less than $200 full coverage for 2 cars. I don't think I'd drop down to just 12 hours a week at work either. I know going to work and school both is hard but, sometimes it's just something you have to do. A lot of people have to work full time, juggle families and go to school too. I'll definitely be harder but, I'd try and work more hours. Even if you just worked one more 12 hour shift on the weekend or something that'd be double the income. Good luck to you, I think worrying about finances is on the same stress level as worrying about school. :-(

I know this is an "old" thread but, it pops back up every year so I thought I'd include my experience as I just recently did a flu clinic. I think it's an odd process, there's very little communication and almost no human interaction with anyone in the company. You sign up online and do a test, then you're basically "hired". I didn't receive an email or anything for an interview/questions etc and had no idea I'd been hired really, no communication at all. You select your state and then click clinics you'd like to be considered for. There's supposed to be an email sent out every Monday with all the new available clinics (I've never received one), I just check the website. You'll get an email if you're picked for a clinic. The email says confirm via email that you want to accept that clinic and then you call and confirm with the coordinator at the site you're doing the clinic. 3 and 1 day prior to the clinic you receive a confirm text or call. When you get to the site they should have the box containing all your supplies. You set up and give shots. Giving the shots is pretty straightforward, I hadn't used this certain needle before but, it was simple. All the training was done by a PDF document (I think a video would've been nice). Like JoJo said above the paperwork can be funky. Also, from what I experienced, what the training/paperwork says and how things really are can be different/conflicting. When you open the box of supplies it'll have the vaccine and all the supplies needed syringes, Band-Aids, alcohol swabs, gloves etc and it'll have a folder with the needed paperwork and instructions. My folder was missing some paperwork so, I had to call and they emailed over the needed forms and a manager at the site printed them out. The actual work is fine, giving the shots is straightforward and easy. My clinic was just a few hours and in those few hours I gave a handful of shots. The manager said most of his employees came in after the clinic was scheduled and said he was trying to get people in earlier. Near the end of the scheduled clinic is when everyone started coming in. There's a paper in the folder that said in bold all uppercase print that said, you must stay and vaccinate everyone even if you have to stay longer than the clinic is scheduled and you can't leave until the on-site staff let's you go. I did most of the vaccinations for over an hour past the time my clinic was supposed to end. When I finished everyone waiting the manager said he had 2 more people coming on their way but, would be a few minutes. I called OccuVAX and asked them what to do since there were 2 people left and they said I should of packed up and left at the scheduled time because, this certain company won't pay for people to stay over and I was kind of "scolded". No where in any of my paperwork, emails or communications was I told this. All I had was the paper with the big bold letters that said I must stay and finish even if it's after my scheduled time. Well, anyways those last 2 people came while I was in the phone with OccuVAX and they said the finish them up. Some of the things from the paperwork/training packet are different than what you receive. The sharps container return instructions were completely different than the instructions in the paperwork. A certain form said it'd be blue in the paperwork but, it was yellow. That plus the missing forms made things a little confusing but, was simple to figure out. After the end of my clinic I packed everything up and made a trip to the post office and to the other side of my town to UPS to drop the return packages off. I know this is a long post but, I wanted to give my experience since there's not that much info out there. If you don't mind the minimal communication, training, kind of vague and conflicting instructions etc I think it could be an okay sometimes job for some people. I had fun setting up my table and enjoyed giving the injections and talking to people etc. If you're a person who needs a little more instruction, it's probably not the job for you. I don't think I'd have liked doing it as a new grad. Personally, I don't know if I'd sign up again next year. Being scolded for doing exactly what my paperwork told me to do plus the uncertainty if I'll get paid for that time has kind of turned me off. The drive to UPS was on my own time as well. I wouldn't say it was a bad experience, just kind of meh.

Yep, that unfortunately is the normalish patient load in LTC. I'd say 20-40 patients is probably average. When I worked LTC we had 25 in the skilled wing (Hospital step down, trachs, tube feedings, iv ABX, many dressings etc), 40ish in the dementia lock down unit and 55 in the LTC unit. 2-3 CNAs per unit and an extra nurse on the lock down and LTC units on day shift only. In LTC you don't really get to spend a lot of time on one on one care. It's more like moving quickly from one nursing task to another, with the main task being med passes. It does get easier once you get into a good routine. Time management is key. Browse thru the LTC forums and there are some good posts on time management/tips. Making myself a to-do list and scheduling out my shift worked well for me. Good Luck.