I recently resigned from my med tech duties, just in time for the new company we work for to buy out our building. Anyway, the new company has four days' training for the new med techs (now they're "med aides") BUT they have so much responsibility that I cannot imagine being in their shoes. It was one thing to pass pills and be shift supervisor, but now the med aides are drowning in paperwork and don't even time to take a break anymore. (Now one med aide passes meds for the whole building--that's about 50 people--on each shift.) They have alert charting, skin care charting, progress notes, pharmacy orders, vital sign charting, etc., then there's the faxes they have to send to pharmacy, to the doctor asking about this or that resident's medication, oh and did I forget to mention that we're on a first-name basis on the guy who delivers our meds EVERY NIGHT? (and sometimes more than once a night). That new doctor must really love pumping our residents full of meds. Needless to say, the med aides are burning out and the raise they were promised four months ago has not happened, but the promised increase in workload and job stress, has. Now that the med aides are virtually working as staff nurses, they're beginning to wonder what our boss has to do.
