Does anybody else find the "I didn't go to school to do X" mentality annoying? Annoying, not the correct word. Hmm...frustrating is more like it. Let me clarify: the "I didn't go to school to do X", X being, I guess, bathing patients or waitressing (i.e. bringing patients sodas, etc). Isn't the whole idea behind nursing to care for both the body and soul (spirit, mind, whatever your religious/cultural beliefs are)? My goal here isn't to be all Florence Nightingale-ish, but just to inquire as to when this attitude began and why.
I believe it's possible to prevent your patient from becoming septic and having a keen eye in recognizing subtle changes AND get your patient or patient's family member a warm blanket or maybe the 10th warm blanket during your shift. If it brings them comfort, why not do it? Nobody is above bringing comfort to a patient Nurses are both skilled, intelligent AND caring. I certainly wouldn't want someone with a "I'm too good for X" mentality to care for myself or my family member. And, yes, I understand that it's not always possible to do the little things for patients; there are certainly shifts from (shall we say purgatory? Yes, that's a kinder word lol) where it's just not possible, and I understand that we're pulled in a million different directions. But, it's everybody's job to help patients, not the CNA vs. nurse mentality.
Which brings me to one of my biggest pet peeves (nurses not helping CNA's). One of my friends who is a CNA at another hospital told me that a nurse refused to help her, saying, "That is not my job. I don't touch patients." WHAT?? Wow is all I can say. Most people in the public thank nurses and appreciate all that we do, but two things that are keeping us from being viewed as a profession would be: the above statement by the few nurses who say/do such things, and gossiping/texting at nurse stations. Hospitals really shouldn't have to have policies forbidding facebook and texting; it should be a given that we don't do such things at work when we should be working. (I understand that there are family emergencies, etc, but still, those can be handled in staff rooms away from patients).
In closing, I just want to thank all of the nurses, CNA's/PCT's on here that work so hard every single day for their patients! There may be days where we may feel like all we did was run, run all shift, and think "am I making a difference?" Yes, most certainly. What would have happened if you had not noticed X, for instance? Would your patient not be worse for the weather? Or how about the :) you got from Mrs Jones in Room 202 for doing X? There seems to be a prevalent "I'm just a nurse" mentality, as well, and that inferiority complex really needs to stop.
Heck, I've unplugged toilets, fixed broken toilet handles, repaired wheelchairs, cleaned the patient snack fridge, pureed whole meals... all because the departments that are supposed to do these things can never manage to do them.
Patients notice this and say, "Hey! Why are you doing that?" I just tell them I'm a jack of all trades. I would like to tell them the truth: this hospital sucks.
I once got floated from my busy unit to another unit that "desperately" needed help. I got over there and the unit manager tried to put me to work cleaning their closets!
Really?
No.
I then went to the house supervisor and asked to return to my unit where all hockey was breaking loose d/t high acuity (we had a lower census, but acuity was through the roof!).
What a waste to take me off a unit I was highly skilled in and valuable to just to send me to clean closets!
I need to be keeping my patients safe and I have to watch them like a hawk and it thoroughly yanks my chain when I have to do someone elses' job.
And when staff from other units float to my floor... they freak out because they have to touch a patient or deal with stool.
If they are too "educated" to change a brief, then I am too educated to clean their darn closet!
ok, maybe you didnt understand what i wrote & maybe you should reread :) to anwser all your comments
#1 im not exaggerating at all, like i said i've seen this with my own 2 eyes which i have 20/20 vision !
#2 i said in that perticular situation his cna was on break so whos responsible for the pateint ? obviously her reliever. now her reliever was assistting one of her own patients. the nurse wasnt busy passing meds or doing dressings, she was just sitting there on yahoo! he had to wait 20 minutes in his feces for the cna, so your telling me she couldnt just take him to the bathroom? yea exactly my point!
like i said there are good nurses & i compleelty understand that you guys have your own work load but if a cna is busy and theres a patient who needs assistance shouldnt you help them?yes ! because every nurse learns in school about doing perineal care
maybe before telling me to re-read my post you should re-read your post and run it through a spelling and grammar check??
@cherrybreezy.. lol im sorry if i came on alil strong its just that being in this career you have to learn to speak up for yourslf in a respectful way. i have seen people get verbally abused and pushed over & i just refuse to be one of them. i amt not disrespectful at all in any way. my patients love me, and i wasnt the cna from that situation, and if i was i wouldve told that nurse about herself and probly reported her to the don
@mshellokitty .. i really could care less about any grammer or spelling mistakes i might have made because im not in class and your not my teacher! the fact of the matter is, is that you made comments about a situation you were'nt there for. so your assumptions doesnt matter, because you were completely wrong
you stated i should run it threw a spell and grammer check, but yet you ended your sentence with a question mark? i dont see a question there, i see a comment. hmmm take your own advice
I understand this IF you know how to do something such as a task a CNA can do and do it well, but i get this from student nurses, intern nurses, new nurses in training and it gets old! Some of these people do not even know how to do or still are not comfortable with these tasks and NEED to do this as part of thier training and somehow feel intitled to say "I didnt go to school for that or I ddidnt become a nurse to wipe butts!" nice! but wrong sometimes everyone needs to pitch in!
When I've been slammed and actually had to ask people to do their own d*** job, these are the responses I've gotten:
RT to suction a patient: "can't the nurse do it, it's almost shift change."
Dietary to bring up the food that they left off the tray, "Can you come down to get it, we're busy."
Pharmacy to bring up a PCA syringe that I'd warned them I'd be needing hours before, "Can you come down to get it, we're short staffed."
Housekeeping to clean an IV pole: "We don't clean the IV poles." Ok, so who does? "The nurses clean them."
Housekeeping to empty the trash: "What? You're too good to take out the trash?"
Formula room, when I called for formula that had been ordered 6 hours prior: "Is there someone that can come get it?" No, we're all running around up here. "Well I was just about to leave." OK, then I guess the baby won't get to eat all night. Strangely when I made it clear it would be HER fault the baby would be hungry, because I wasn't going to take the blame for HER job not being done, she found someone else to bring it to the floor.
My favorite though, is calling the computer folks. Because when I have patient care, they want me to spend 20 minutes fixing the printer or computer.
Oh, and when we're short a tech, the nurses pick up the slack and take a total care patient. When we're short a nurse, the nurses pick up the slack and we all get a patient added to our load.
When we're short both a tech and a nurse? Nurses STILL pick up the slack and take an extra patient AND one of them is total care.
And we get told, "Well we all have to work together." No, working together would be EVERYONE picking up the slack. The hospital version of working together is "Let the nurses do it."
You know I was thinking about this last night, & wonder why we tolerate other departments not doing their job, or rather, why nursing management tolerates others not doing their job when they KNOW nursing staff are busy.
- In my ED, we have to clean all the equipment & all the beds, change them etc when we are busy. There are NO housekeeping (HK) staff on at anytime, any day of the week to do this (that's gov't budget cuts for you, thinking they are saving money).
- Had to take a patient to radiology on a Sunday because - you guessed it - there were no other staff on whatsoever, only the radio tech. The patient didn't even need a nurse escort, so I had extra work when I got back & - you guessed right again folks! - got behind.
- On another occasion, took a patient who was still intoxicated down to radiology, the shift coordinator knew I was going down, came back, none of my shoers/BSLs were done, my patients were already eating b/fast & I got 'told off'. I however did NOT let that one go and complained, though I got a backlash from it & was ostracised.
- I've had to empty bins that get smelly because on a weekend and after hours, there are no HK staff to do it. If the bin sits in a room till Monday because we have been running our tails off & it's not emptied, HK COMPLAIN, loudly, to their supervisor.
- I've also had to deliver breakfasts, supervised staff to heat up meals, and have had to run to other departments to get linen because we had not one scrap of cloth on our floor.
- I've had to clean curtains with vomit on them (cos HK only do this every 6 months or some BS). I've had to do patient's washing & put in the dryer when we've run out of gowns (HK doesn't do this). I've had to put towels over pillows cos we ran out of pillow covers.
- I've had to help 2 ENs clean up a trail of urine & poop from one end of the ward to the other. Now, that is probably part of our job - however, not when it's on the floor, as I argued with the HK. SHE replied: it goes against occ health & safety rules (???). Well, what about OUR occ health & safety? And - get this - we had to use HER mop, then throw away the soiled mop head (as per occ health & safety rules), and change the mop head. Meanwhile, bells are ringing, people shouting & complaining there were no nurses around.
- Worked in one small place where I was actually told to clean the bathroom after it had been used - toilet & all. THIS time I refused, and said you will have to get ur act together to get more HK staff; I did NOT go to university to do CLEANING, which I feel is beneath me. Have u ever heard of a Hk with a cleaning degree? cos I haven't!
- In most hospitals - well all actually - HK finish at 4pm. I very rarely see anyone after 4pm. If there is a spill or a mess, we have to clean it all up.
So the question I ask is: if we have to do shiftwork, why can't everyone else? The only person I see after hours is the girl who gives out the meals, and they do very little. They will not even take the lids off old people's tea/soup etc even when asked. I've seen this happen, when we were busy & told the girl off. She ACTUALLY replied that is wasn't in their job description!
Perhaps we nurses do it to ourselves because we tolerate all of this. I wonder, I really do. What would happen if we all unite together and start saying NO YOU NEED TO HIRE MORE STAFF TO DO THEIR JOB! They can't do ours so why should we do theirs??!
I understand this IF you know how to do something such as a task a CNA can do and do it well, but i get this from student nurses, intern nurses, new nurses in training and it gets old! Some of these people do not even know how to do or still are not comfortable with these tasks and NEED to do this as part of thier training and somehow feel intitled to say "I didnt go to school for that or I ddidnt become a nurse to wipe butts!" nice! but wrong sometimes everyone needs to pitch in!
Welll, what did they think they were going to school for???
@mshellokitty .. i really could care less about any grammer or spelling mistakes i might have made because im not in class and your not my teacher! the fact of the matter is, is that you made comments about a situation you were'nt there for. so your assumptions doesnt matter, because you were completely wrong
jeannie, it makes reading ur posts very hard when they aren't spelled properly. your grammar really is bad - & i'm not talking about 4 = four, as in text-speak.
none of us are there for situations, but we all make comments, so i don't think this comment makes sense. you came on a nursing site asking for advice & not everyone is going to agree with you.
this is a pretty childish comment for someone who is 22 years old. grow up & get over it, & move on.
When I've been slammed and actually had to ask people to do their own d*** job, these are the responses I've gotten:
RT to suction a patient: "can't the nurse do it, it's almost shift change."
Dietary to bring up the food that they left off the tray, "Can you come down to get it, we're busy."
Pharmacy to bring up a PCA syringe that I'd warned them I'd be needing hours before, "Can you come down to get it, we're short staffed."
Housekeeping to clean an IV pole: "We don't clean the IV poles." Ok, so who does? "The nurses clean them."
Housekeeping to empty the trash: "What? You're too good to take out the trash?"
Formula room, when I called for formula that had been ordered 6 hours prior: "Is there someone that can come get it?" No, we're all running around up here. "Well I was just about to leave." OK, then I guess the baby won't get to eat all night. Strangely when I made it clear it would be HER fault the baby would be hungry, because I wasn't going to take the blame for HER job not being done, she found someone else to bring it to the floor.
My favorite though, is calling the computer folks. Because when I have patient care, they want me to spend 20 minutes fixing the printer or computer.
Oh, and when we're short a tech, the nurses pick up the slack and take a total care patient. When we're short a nurse, the nurses pick up the slack and we all get a patient added to our load.
When we're short both a tech and a nurse? Nurses STILL pick up the slack and take an extra patient AND one of them is total care.
And we get told, "Well we all have to work together." No, working together would be EVERYONE picking up the slack. The hospital version of working together is "Let the nurses do it."
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stand that. we are always short nurses and aides ( no aides half the time). Now dietary does less, housekeeping apparently can't clean the IV poles here either. everything you mentioned i have seen and heard. It is all our job. the "too posh to wash" is not me even if most of the reasoning behind me going into nursing is for money. If i am washing a patient and I have 4 other patients, no aides on the floor, the other nurses also have 5 patients. who can help me turn this patient or keep an eye on my other patients. oh and someone is on the phone demanding to speak to , "the nurse!"
some i can suck it up due to the genreral ignorance and stupidity of the public. but it really gets to me when it comes from rt, pharamcy, doctors etc. at shift change the "why is this TRASH CAN FULL, EMPTY IT!" (true story, not directed towards me). it has nothing to do with me or the other nurses being, "too good to empty the trash"..................yet i always see the housekeepers waltzing around laughing and carrying on......................
Hygiene Queen
2,232 Posts
Heck, I've unplugged toilets, fixed broken toilet handles, repaired wheelchairs, cleaned the patient snack fridge, pureed whole meals... all because the departments that are supposed to do these things can never manage to do them.
Patients notice this and say, "Hey! Why are you doing that?" I just tell them I'm a jack of all trades. I would like to tell them the truth: this hospital sucks.
I once got floated from my busy unit to another unit that "desperately" needed help. I got over there and the unit manager tried to put me to work cleaning their closets!
Really?
No.
I then went to the house supervisor and asked to return to my unit where all hockey was breaking loose d/t high acuity (we had a lower census, but acuity was through the roof!).
What a waste to take me off a unit I was highly skilled in and valuable to just to send me to clean closets!
I need to be keeping my patients safe and I have to watch them like a hawk and it thoroughly yanks my chain when I have to do someone elses' job.
And when staff from other units float to my floor... they freak out because they have to touch a patient or deal with stool.
If they are too "educated" to change a brief, then I am too educated to clean their darn closet!