Jen01tx

Exactly. It sparked enough curiosity to cause her to start a thread. It might have been something about the way the nurse recieving the report made her request... her tone or whatever.

You made a great point!

Initially most nursing schools DO require their students to do the work an aide normally would. I'm speaking of during their clinical rotation.s The first six weeks of clinicals nursing students work very closely with the aides. I do have to say that is what I experieced at my school and what my friends have experienced here in Houston. My first six weeks of clinicals I made beds, gave bed baths/showers, changed diapers, provided oral care, and helped with feeding.

" It might prevent the nurse from questioning orders for higher or lower-than-usual dosages of certain medications though, don't you think?" True.

" It might prevent the nurse from questioning orders for higher or lower-than-usual dosages of certain medications though, don't you think?" True.

Trust me, we pick up those skills quickly. At least I had to. Your unit won't run if you can't guide the staff. Especially for those evening and night shifts when a DON/ADON aren't readily available and you might have one supervisor.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will be better prepared next time such a situation arises.

"What I meant was that nurses learn nursing. They don't learn leadership or managerial skills." I have to disagree with this statement. Nurses are taught about delegation, different styles/approachs to take in managing the staff, etc. It might vary from state to state, but leadership skills are a big part of nursing.

I won't go into all the details of what happened to me today. I'm just getting off my shift and wanted to vent. The jist of it is I had a negative exchange with my supervior today. I questioned why we were taking a particular approach in patient care and her response was an eye roll and the statement: "Your just an LVN, you don't have the know how to make that call". Words cannot describe how her comment has brought me down. I'm a recent grad ( working on the unit for about four months). School was time consuming and draining and it seems like we all work so hard to get where we are. There are still places I want to go and I won't stop until I at least have my BSN, but I chose this route for a reason. The problem is that since I have been out of school it seems like people in general don't have much respect for LVN's. Administrators, nursing supervisors, doctors, CNA's, even family members at times. People always ask that dreaded question: "Oh, you're a nurse? RN?" Followed by body language that reveals an obvious lack of faith in my abilities once I say I'm a LVN. All this, not to mention the fact that I feel stifled, like there are no opportunities out there for me as "just an LVN". Anybody have any thoughts on this. I'm just feeling very down right now, and yearning for the respect I feel I deserve as a nurse.

If this was a patient being transferred from your unit to another, asking for the race of the client seems legitimate. Some nurses just like to be thorough when giving or recieving report. Somone mentioned how race plays a role in how an individual might metabolize certain drugs, etc. Personally, I don't think that it would be the nurse who would to use race in any decision making process. Rather, the doctor might actually be the person who needs that information, being that he is the one prescribing the drugs.