pennyaline

Sounds like sour grapes. Shine it on. Meanwhile, I hate you for vacationing in the tropics. Damn you and your pina coladas! (OOOoooooo! Imagine the evil look you're getting!)

I read somewhere once that nursing programs are great money losers for colleges and universities. This college no doubt totted up the enrollment and financial aid numbers and decided that the loss had gone on long enough. There is nothing romantic about financial reality.

If someone from the lab comes and draws the trough, that person wouldn't necessarily know that Vancomycin was running. It's not up to them to know what meds are up.

could you restate this, please? i can't figure out who said what and what you want us to do in response.

Disclosure of a patient's confidential information is done on a need to know basis only. If the patient died of a reportable disease, it is up to the hospital to report it to your state's DOH. You can do nothing. You have neither a legal obligation nor the right to tell the fiance, or indeed anyone else, about the patient's diagnosis regardless of how you feel about the patient's mother or the perceived shortcomings of the public health system. Don't let your outrage blind you to your responsibility to preserve confidentiality.

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

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.

I'll wait until I hear the other side's version of events.

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

Just answer the question.

I don't understand your point. Is being expected to take a turn at secretarial duties on your unit equivalent to being treated in an illegal and immoral fashion? Or are you using "nurses as secretaries" as a metaphor for larger-scale abuse?

Right, and they hire cheaper yet still experienced nurses whenever they can. Meanwhile, it makes no sense to the business mind to pay two people (nurses who are already on staff, and unit secretaries who are ancillary workers) to do the work that one person (the nurses) can do. The wages for unit secretaries are unquestionably lower than nurses wages, but when it comes to budget cuts ancillary staff is far more expendable than nursing staff and will be cut first. As has been said before, no one disagrees with you. And as also been said before, the climate for change is not right. Not now. Not yet. So stop b****ing, be flexible, and keep your jobs.

And vice versa, dear

No, it's not because it should be like that. It's because it IS like that and under current economic conditions it's going to stay like that for the duration. Reinforcing that this is how things are and that tasks need to be completed regardless of what license you hold is not a sign of disrespect... well, at least not to those of us who have been working for centuries, nor to those of us who recognize the snarkiness in your "I guess I'm a little confused..." preamble. You don't seem to understand that we don't disagree with that. There is nothing wrong with having clerks and secretaries taking off orders and all of that, and I didn't see where anyone said that there WAS something wrong with it. What's being said is that reality requires and always has required that nurses do these jobs as part of nursing care. Your concern about patient load was addressed in a previous post. It was not a big deal when staffing more often meets demand. That's been said already. And perhaps the clerks you worked with were ten times better than you at entering orders and keeping charts in shape, but they are also a financial drain. To understand what is happening, you have to look at it from the other side. It doesn't make business sense to have two people doing the same job. To the business mind, THAT is the waste of resources. I guess you do. This is not about lack of respect for nurses. This is economic reality. Health care is a huge business, and rightly or wrongly this is how business gets done. Also, the OP wasn't concerned that she had too many other duties to carry out the demands of unit secretary at the same time. As she stated it, she was concerned that she wasn't up to the job and hadn't been trained for it, and then she tried to disguise it as a complaint about institutional misuse of licensed talent. My take on it is that she just doesn't want to do it.

You do understand that the work you're downplaying as "administrative" (which is erroneous, by the way, as it is supportive and not administrative in any respect) is what we were taught to do in nursing school, don't you? Accurate order transcription and maintaining complete documentation was stressed from Day 1, and in the days before unit clerks and unit secretaries, nurses did it and patient care too. And since maintaining charts and orders is also part of patient care, it's not out of line to expect us to be able to do it. Further, during my time as an RN I've worked more often without secretaries and clerks than with them. They would be hired for busy shift, then cut back or phased out secondary to budget concerns. They didn't work off shifts, and they didn't work weekends. That left it for us, and until the severe cuts in nursing staff numbers came it wasn't really a huge issue to have to do our own paperwork, write our own MARS, do our own computer data entry, etc. From your post, I gather that you're concerned about this perceived misassignment of clinical personnel because you are personally uncomfortable about taking the "secretarial" role. You have little basis for complaint. You've already had more training than unit secretaries and clerks get, so you can't claim that as a reason to not take on the responsibility. You just have to get over yourself and jump into it, perception be damned. You'll learn it, quickly. It's in your interest to do so because in case you hadn't noticed, the more adaptability you have on the job, the more likely it is that you'll keep it.