"They give the meds, we do the care"

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Watching "Undercover Boss" and its the CEO of Brightstar, which i've never heard of. So, apparently one of the jobs of the company is providing agency staff to nursing homes, etc. The CEO asked a CNA what the difference between a CNA and the RN is. "They give the meds, we do the care".....

Although I know this is probably a common view of what a RN is, its still frustrating to hear it!

Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

In LTC the CNA probably does a lot of the ADL's and intimate care. But this person has no clue what the responsibilities are for a nurse. PLUS, her boss is giving her a franchise so she can boss around people without a clue as to what their job is. No wonder we have issues with agencies in our facility.

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I haven't watched the show but I agree with previous posters..... however..... there's a part of me that is tempted to almost agree with what the CNA said.

Of course the nurse is doing a hell of a lot more than giving the medications but I do wish I had more time to do more of the 'basic nursing care'. I'm at my happiest when I'm giving a bed bath, changing the sheets, repositioning and making a patient comfy and honestly, I don't get to do it as often as I would like.

I guess I just feel that basic nursing care is such an important part of the total care of a patient, and you never have quite the same relationship with a patient when you don't get a chance to spend much time giving this basic care.

I'm probably a dinosaur but I learn more about a patient's falls risk when I assist them to the toilet than when I fill out the falls risk assessment tool!

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I didn't spend sixty thousand dollars to get a degree in ass wiping for a living. CNA's are great and I got along with them well when I was still a student.

Sure we give the meds, but can you gauge the reactions, tell the doc if something went wrong, and deal with the mountains of paperwork/charting?

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Specializes in LTC.

...it's just a sound byte. What would make you happy, a 20-minute list of every single thing a nurse does during the day vs what a CNA does? A breakdown of the overlapping areas? I work in LTC where the boundaries are more defined but our regular nurse sometimes puts people on the toilet. Oh no, what now? :lol2:

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