Replaced by Certified Medication Aide!

ladyjanelpn · Feb 1, 2013

...Forgot to mention that I was replaced after the part-time hours

22gawhitacre · Feb 1, 2013

This is why it is good for LPNs to go ahead and move up to an RN degree. In many states as an LPN you are very limited and having your RN will give you a lot more flexibility in career choices.

Yes, fellow LPNs, its happening here in Northeast Ohio! Trained and oriented CMA and was then given extreme partime hours(as were the other LPNs) while CMA gets 40hrs and benefits! And of course, they are paid less per hour. The entire program is a disaster for us LPNs as well as the patients we care for and thet dont get a choice either. No such thing as patient care...its all about money and its sickening

demylenated, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2013

It's scary! I was a CMA. I watched for a week as people who couldn't even pronounce the medication they were given pushed pills. I watched as a girl struggled to understand the reading of a BP before giving up and just saying, here take you "lissanepral."

That week jolted me into realizing I was not adequately trained and I had no business giving meds, so I went back to school. This was back in 1997 in Virginia!

Terrifying what we are turning medicine into and whose hands we are allowing health to be placed into.

NurseGuyBri · Feb 2, 2013

It is scary, but if implemented appropriately, CMA's can be beneficial in ALF's. A for SNF/NF's, not sure I'd want to go that route. I do know in other states they have CNA II's and CNA IV's which can do treatments/ meds. Can be a little scary.

I have seen a facility in another state with CMA's have a "tree" setup. RN supervising 120 beds, 2 LPN's managing 60 on each side, and then 4 CMA's on each side. Basically, the 4 CMA's were passing pills, the LPN's got more bedside care and time to focus on patient reviews and care, and the RN supervied. It worked VERY well, and cost the facility minimally more. (i.e. much improved care but mild increase in total salary pay). Tthe CMA's took the spot of the LPN's passing meds to free the LPN's up to do other stuff. They actually really liked it, and it worked.

I'm not saying this is the norm, but this facility rocked it!

Mijourney · Feb 2, 2013

Hmm... So I guess that those of us licensed as RNs will be paying higher malpractice rates in these scenarios? We'll need the additional coverage if we become responsible for supervising both LPNs and CMAs that perform various type of medication administrations. Not sure if I want to work in that type of facility.

Mijourney · Feb 2, 2013

However, if it works for the patient, family, and staff who am I to look down on it.

BSNbeauty, BSN, RN · Feb 2, 2013

I'm sorry this happened to you. While CMAs are cheaper, I would personally feel more comfortable with a LPN giving medications. I was once certified as a CMA, while I never used the cert. to work in a SNF, it was scary that I only received 20 hours of education and that was it.

I believe CMAs can be great if they go more training. Alot of CMAs have to medicate 60 plus residents within one hour. I know short cuts are being done. Well, this is health care for you.

I hope you get a job where you will be fully utilized and your skills will be appreciated. Yes, RN is another option but not everyone wants or need to go that route. LPNs are still needed in many areas in health care.

Wishing you well.

tewdles, RN · Feb 2, 2013

Yep, they can give the meds.

They can't teach them

they can't monitor for effect or side effect

they can't assess for prns

lindarn · Feb 2, 2013

This is going to continue, until we, as nurses, RNs and LPN/LVNs, go public with this. Teachers aren't being replaced with unlicensed teaching assistants, are they? Why not? Because teachers are almost universally unionzed, with strong, and politically powerful unions. That is why. And furthermore, no one ever died because they could not do long division, or diagram a sentence, have they? And when/if, schools try anything that lessens, or removes the teachers' control over his/her classroom, they go right to the parents. They have public rallies with the parents, in very public places, with the news and TV stations in attendance, to make sure that it lands on the front page on the local paper and is on the 6:00 and 11:00 news reports.

Whine all you want about unions, being unionzed, blah, blah, but unions are what give workers power and control over their work and professional practice.

There is nothing unprofessional about being unionzed, just like there is nothing professional about being overworked, forced to work out of your scope of practice, forced to give up your professional practice to nothing more than HS dropouts.

Why haven't nurses gone to the public about this? Probably because most nursing homes or ALFs are not unionized, and you would be fired, and probabaly reported to the BON by the administration, on some trumped up allegation.

Nurses have no one to blame but themselves. Period. Our professional practice is being given away like it was the door prize. With our permission.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

seanynjboy, BSN · Feb 2, 2013

It is scary, but if implemented appropriately, CMA's can be beneficial in ALF's. A for SNF/NF's, not sure I'd want to go that route. I do know in other states they have CNA II's and CNA IV's which can do treatments/ meds. Can be a little scary.
I have seen a facility in another state with CMA's have a "tree" setup. RN supervising 120 beds, 2 LPN's managing 60 on each side, and then 4 CMA's on each side. Basically, the 4 CMA's were passing pills, the LPN's got more bedside care and time to focus on patient reviews and care, and the RN supervied. It worked VERY well, and cost the facility minimally more. (i.e. much improved care but mild increase in total salary pay). Tthe CMA's took the spot of the LPN's passing meds to free the LPN's up to do other stuff. They actually really liked it, and it worked.
I'm not saying this is the norm, but this facility rocked it!

That does sound pretty awesome.

allnurses Guide · Feb 2, 2013

This is going to continue, until we, as nurses, RNs and LPN/LVNs, go public with this. Teachers aren't being replaced with unlicensed teaching assistants, are they? Why not? Because teachers are almost universally unionzed, with strong, and politically powerful unions.

I think you're right, lindarn. This won't stop with a CMA replacing an LPN, it will continue to ripple across all levels of the nursing workplace. Anything to save a few pennies until they compile enough safety statistics to realize it won't be cost effective in the long run. It's difficult to see how things have changed for the worse in the nursing field since I first started in it.