Destiny'skid

I have experienced bullying at work and here are my thoughts. There is personal and there is professional issues. Personal issues cannot be dealt with the same way. The example of being left out of activities outside of work or conversations pretty much you just have to ignore. You have to accept that you may not be friends with everyone at work. The goal is to create boundaries and gain the respect of others not get them to like you. I dealt with this stuff by letting it be water off my back. If people gossiped about me or called me out on things I didn't do I didn't try to defend my self as long as its threats they do nothing. Defending yourself and getting upset wot help. If they try to write you up that's when you go to a higher authority you show their error ( doing by hear say ect) and they can get in trouble they can't right u up from hearsay they can threaten bit u can ignore them. There are third party organizations who can help to. I have a friend who used this route, but I think you will have much more success with whatever route/process you go through if you stick to the professional problems. Your boss or coworkers don't have to be nice or like you but they have to work as a team. So instead for example of saying how snooty they are keep track of and report real examples of how a person ignored you and it hindered a patient from being cared for. I think if you keep the two issues separate it will help. Personal bullying is bad but there's not always much that can be done. Many bullies don't care. So stick to the stuff that actually breaks the rules. One last thing. I you make a mistake and are written up when others get away with it, try to remember two wrongs don't make a right. Ie it's still wrong when you do it. If others sit around and chat remember you aren't being paid for this. Take advantage of your alloted breaks and don't be bullied put of them they are yours BY LAW. Any way hope this helps just my two cents. You can't fix everyone else but you can keep yourself above reproach. These methods have really helped me at work.

To me the question is not so much whether or not healthcare is a right. Depends how you define right. We have a serious problem in this country because healthcare is a business. Nurses probably suffer the most because of this, they are often under payed over worked and can be accused by disgruntled patients for simply doing their job. The first job I had as an aide was a for profit rehab. I was shocked how much emphasis was placed in delivering excellent costumer service as opposed to excellent care. To me the focus of healthcare should be healthcare and nurses and aides are not waitresses. Nurses have doctors orders to carry out and aides have nurses orders. This supposedly customer service oriented facility put one aide to 14 plus total care patients and one lpn to twice that many. (That was if we were fully staffed which almost never happened) Yet we were supposed to greet family members with a cheery smile because our job was deliver excellent costumer service. I saw things to on in that place that I can't bare to mention. I could go on and on pharmaceutical companies running all drug research. Lobbyists. Doctors being forced by the board of directors to over prescribe surgeries or admit more patients. Are books a right? No one thinks twice about public libraries and we all benefit from them and no one who borrows books is ever accused of leaching off the system. It's no secret that government jobs are well paid jobs and nurses wouldn't likely have a win win if healthcare washer like the library or postal system. One last thing, before we accuse the poor of this country lets look at the huge amounts of corporate welfare and tax breaks the rich enjoy. Why is that not considered leaching? We are in just as much danger if not more of losing our freedom to these corporations. So is healthcare a right? Is education? A postal system? A fire and rescue squad in each town? Or a police force? Perhaps none of these things are yet I am not ready to give them up.

Can someone clarify what a mandated hippaa reporter is? Are cna's mandated reporters? If so why cnas and not nurses?

This post is a little scary to someone in nursing school. Seriously no jobs? It took me 6 months to get my current cna/ma job and I plan on working here once I graduate. I know a few people asked but what about ltc? It seems since they hire a lot of lpns an rn would have a significant advantage. I don't see a big difference in a rehab unit to the ortho unit I used to work in. I thought if all else fails I could do rehab and transition to ortho hopefully. I have one last question is it harder to find a job as an rn than another profession? I mean its hard but harder than landing a teaching job for example? How overhyped is this whole nursing shortage?

So I finally got my acceptance letter for my lpn program. So thrilled. I am surprised how many people want to discourage that I am doing lpn- rn instead of straight rn. To me this is so perfect. Instead of 4 years as a cna I will net about 2 years then about a year to 2 years as an lpn. I will get higher pay And more experience by the time jam finished with my rn. I am so excited! Being an lpn feels like a huge step up from cna. Four years of college is intimating but this will total two years with prerecs. And I will be one year away from an rn! ( I have been doing prerecs for both ) I have confidence I made the right choice despite sooooo many opinions. Where I live there are plenty of lpn jobs. Nursing homes ( where I currently work as a cna) outpatient , labs, rehabs, even the hospital ( where you are titled nurse technician ) looking forward to this next stop on my nursing school journey.

I seem to attract bullies to myself. I was bullies in school and in some previous jobs, but as cna bullying takes on a new dimension. First off I should say my job does things differently and I don't like it. They put several cna's on a team to care for a floor under one rn. This to me just creates a lot of confusion. the rn doesn't have time to be too involved with the plan and its never clear whose supposed to call the shots so to speak, now honestly I can put up with another cna telling me what to do or following me around to make sure I do my job right. I can put up with reminding me to follow standards that I know to be true. I run into trouble when the other cna who has presumed herself to be the lead tells me to do something that goes against what I feel is right for the patient. Its one thing for a nurse to do this because I work under her license but I am not under the license of this cna therefore if the patient complains I will be held responsible. I've already gotten called out for not answering call bells ect. because the cna was having me do other things. My nurse has made it clear however she has no time for resolving conflicts and I just need to find a way top get along. I understand her not having time Im just not sure what to do when the cna tells me to not help someone because Its more important to do such and such. She even physically grabs me to bring me where she feels I should be. One or two cnas come in at two and then I come in at five and they seem to think since I come in later Im the bottom of the totem pole. One day I emptied a foley bag charted the amount and gave it in writing to the nurse and the other cna got all huffy that i didnt give it to her. I was under the impression we could not have other cnas chart for us nor were we allowed to give patients info to them yet it happens all the time. I flat out dont like this system. if we all worked as a team it with our nurse as the leader it would be fine but one cnas seems to always try to be in charge. Also they sometimes designate one cna as the helper. I dont understand what this means but honestly I dont like it. Our job is already so stressful trying to follow the rns direstions and do everything the patients need the way they want it. Its too much to have to worry about another cna bossing me and pushing me around. How can I be a positive influence? Is this somehow my fault. I dont want to be a problem and I like my nurse and the people I take care of and I want to be a better team player, but I enjoyed much more having my own assignments and just working with other cnas on the floor. Any thoughts?

Yes and as I stated before this question was never about me not knowing what to call myself I NEVER refer to myself as a nurse it,just seems that according to popular culture nurses were one a broad catagory of caregivers or the word nurse originally was a very general term, that did not necessarily have any relation to medicine as with a nurse maid. I think jade lpn really explained it well thank you !

Ok so I am going to probably cause a huge reaction here but I am genuinely curious about this. As a nursing student and current cna/med aide I have heard nurses talking about the trouble with patients and family calling techs,aides, even kitchen or housekeeping staff "nurse". I understand why after having gone thru a rigorous schooling program they would be defensive of there prifession. Let me add right here that I have never once claimed to be nurse and if people ask me I correct them. Today curiosity sparked me to look up the word nurse in the dictionary. It said someone who is trained to care for the sick or infirmed, or for young children. (as a wet or dry nurse). Wouldn't this definition include unlicensed care givers? I remember years ago when my exhusband was very ill and the doctor was showing me how to care for his wound he I believe called me his nurse. The difference seems the term liscense or registered. It seems it would be wrong to call someone a registered nurse but the term nurse actually seems to be by definition a much looser term. Infant I found out on uk they refer to aides sometimes as auxiliary nurses. Again I have not nor will I claim to be a nurse till I graduate I am just curious. Perhaps we need a new term for rn's that sets them apart more as medical professionals...

I have always earned an average of 11 an hour I won't even look twice at jobs offering less than 9. I did have to get some education and considering how demanding the job is I just won't do it for less. If I am going to get paid 7.50 I am going to go work as a server somewhere.

someone posed a question on here which I thought was very thought provoking why not licence cna's, and change it to lna. then they would have higher standards of accountability. make them go to school for 3-6 months and get some real education. You could still have 2 or three unlicensed personnel on the floor who could float to answer call lights, transfer people, and make beds, but they would not be responsible for a group of patients. I really think the system we have now isn't the best for patient safety its more about cost. Just ranting my opinions.

Yeah I don't get the whole ma thing a. the program at my school I believe is longer than the pn program and then they make what cna makes, it seems like a waste for all parties I dont see the advantage except saving money. I guessstill don't see why though these hospitals get rid of lpn's after all if all they want is to save money over patient safety why not get rid of rn's! maybe its because all rn staffing looks good then in reality you have cna's doing all the work.

It may not be a problem I was just wondering why they would not hire an lpn to do it? where is the advantage?

Just curious here, the last hospital I worked in was a magnet hospital and they were not hiring any lpn's even for outpatient. They fired their lpn's even the ones who had been there 20 plus years. Now I can get why a hospital would feel that more educated nurses would deliver better patient care but here's what I don't understand: THE CNA"S THERE WERE ALLOWED TO DO ALL KINDS OF THINGS i have never seen cna's do. They did all the vitals, blood sugar checks, Iv removal and catheter removal. They also prepped patients for surgery, even communicated with doctors at times. I guess there are things about this whole system I don't understand. Who is actually deciding these things? Insurance companies? Other nurses? Doctors? Non medical board of directors? Is it really just a way to cut costs?

Just curious as I have been reading some about the history of professional nursing. Do some hospitals still have orderlies? If so do they differ from cna's? Why do most hospitals not have them? Is this just a situation where the title changed but the job stayed the same?(orderlies started being called cnas's) I read an article about nurse aides being trained as far back as 1945 by the red cross...

Perhaps going in the room with the cna when she is doing his care and talking about what you do that works would help her... perhaps you have already tried this. It seems unfortunately there are some who don't have a very good attitude no matter what. I know its much easier for me to give higher need patients my time when we are properly staffed so I don't know if this is a factor as well. I'm glad there are nurses out there like you, keep up the good work!