Gr8lpn

so true. i met a nurse who worked in inner city n.y. one time, she told me the straw that broke the camels back for her was when she got her nose broken. a coworker of hers had gotten stabbed by a patient who she was giving a shot to, he grabbed the syringe and stabbed her with it, he had hiv and she got it too. i cannot imagine working like that and i am glad she got out. my kudos to all of you. you are so right about this, my husband is an inner city cop, he takes alot of patients to the e.r., he says they treat the nurses awful sometimes. i work in an office. i made them start locking the door to our patient entrance and told them anyone could come up in here with a gun, walk thru that door and kill us all without blinking an eye.

lvns and rns training each other. rn's training lvns is understandable and lvns training rns depends on where and the situation. i have worked in a general surgeon's office for 6 years with four different surgeons. the last one i actually helped start his practice and opened the doors with him 2 years ago. i gave my notice and an rn was taking my place....the first hour went well until i had to hear all about what lvns do wrong while being told and i quote "no offense to you". i was trying to make this transition as easy as possible giving her sample sheets on tests he ordered for certain chief complaints and why he ordered them, all the while, trying to keep patient load to a reasonable level while showing her how clinic flow went and the workings in an office. when you work closely with someone five days a week you tend to learn exactly what they need or are requesting. she was a charge nurse on a surgical floor. working in a surgeon's office i have dealt with wounds, wounds vacs, jp drains etc., etc., what floored me was the fact that she didn't want me to show her how to do the wound vac and dressing change (even though i have been doing these 3 days a week on differnet occasions on different patients) she wanted to watch a video on the internet instead..needless to say this left me very despondent after about the third day of all of this...especially when my hand would be knocked out of the way when i would try and show her something and having to listen to these little comments. i have worked side by side on a hospital floor with rns and lvns some i would work with any day of the week and twice on sunday, others i wish not to be associated with because all they did was bark orders from behind the desk. you have to know your capabilities and scope of practice, and yes the real working world is nothing like nursing school and yes even as an lvn you eventually think like a lawyer because this is a sue happy nation. coming from an lvn this may all be a waste of my time saying, but just because lvn is after a name doesn't mean that common sense and good judgement doesn't follow. this was a bad experience where the whole hang up rn to lvn happened. i wish you luck in your career. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ this is a great answer. i am an lpn who has been a nurse for 12 years, and my experience is, it's not in the "certification", it's what you know and how hard, good and thorough of a worker you are. i have met 30 year veteran rn's who told me that they learned everything they know from and lpn, as years ago it was rn's who were the charge nurses and the lpn's were the floor nurses. in al, where i previously worked on pp and well baby nursery, lpn's could do the same as rn's except push iv meds. in n.c. where i am currently a nurse and have worked on gyn oncology, we werent allowed to hang chemo. that was about it. we worked with pic lines, cv lines, hung blood, pushed iv meds, the whole gammit. i now work at an ob/gyn office and have been here for 7 years. i learned absolutely everything in the office that i know from a cma who has worked for 35 years, she worked in l&d before i was born. i do agree that if the person is being unsafe, it should be addressed, but just because they don't have a certain "title" behind their name, doesn't mean they can't or don't know what to teach someone. good luck to you, hope it is all you expect of it. welcome to the "nursing" world baby girl. strap on your seat belt and get ready for the ride of your life.