I've read many comments on this board about how nurses are often treated disrespectfully, and as a soon-to-be nursing student this has been on my mind a lot lately. I used to think that it was 1 patient in 100 that might be a bit rude but given some posts around here, it seems like it may be more common than I think.
I've been working as a technologist for 2 years and I've never felt disrespected by my patients nor by my employer. I had a patient yesterday who is an RN. I mentioned that I was going to become an RN too and that I have a lot of respect and admiration for nurses. She basically told me not to go into nursing expecting to be treated with respect, and that I should definitely become an NP if I go down the nursing route.
In general, how respected do you feel at work? What kind of setting do you work in? Any insight would be appreciated!
In Australia, there does seem to be a difference between the level of respect given to EN's (LPN's) and RN's. It may be like this in the US (or whatever country other people live in). In my experience as a carer then EN and now soon to be RN, EN's are seen by some carers as 'not real nurses' or 'pretend nurses' and are sometimes not even consulted by carers who choose to go directly to the RN's. I have never cared about this, probably because I'm going on to be an RN, however I do understand the level of frustration EN's feel when staff and patients ask for a 'real nurse'. Of course we report to the RN's and always consult with them before major decisions but we didn't spend almost 2 years studying nursing to be a glorified carer.
I work L&D and have worked in several rough inner city EDs. Definitely not the departments to choose if you want respect out of the job. My patients are rude, harsh, lack social skills, etc. I think it really has more to do with the fact that they are scared and used to being treated like garbage in life, so they expect the same from me. Once I establish trust with them and they know I can provide a reasonable explanation for any question in a way they can understand and that I genuinely do care and want to help them, we generally don't have any problems. There are always going to be some who act the fool regardless of what I do...I just let it roll off.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I almost prefer the patient yelling obscenities at me.
Yep. If the patient starts yelling obscenities or verbally abusing me, I get to end the transaction and leave the room. This makes the situation easier on me.
The patients who were disrespectful to me were usually disrespectful in general. You would get the occasional one who obviously didn't respect women in particular or a manipulator who was trying to play up the doctor for whatever but treated you like trash...but legit "you are just a nurse" behavior was pretty rare in my bedside experience.
I don't have any experience as a nurse besides my school clinicals (I just graduated and am looking for a job now), but I never had a rude patient. I had a patient with dementia tell me to "get the hell out of her house, and lock the door on my way out" (she was in a nursing home) but other than that, I have yet to have a rude patient who was lucid.
All my patients were either as friendly as one would be to a stranger, or very nice. But my my experience may not be the norm due to my limited experience.
What kind of respect are you talking about? Peer to peer? Patient to RN? etc..
Do a good job and be professional..that is the part you need to be concerned with. Not "respect". That will come I suppose with being professional and reliable and attentive at work. If it doesn't oh well. I carry on and complete the mission.
I can only speak for myself and my place of employment. I work at a specialty hospital where nurses are not highly valued. This is mostly due to the fact that we cannot charge for the services we render.
Most of the other healthcare professions in the hospital (medicine, respiratory therapy, speech language pathology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc) are valued because the services they provide generate revenue for the hospital in the form of billable charges. Nursing, on the other hand, is viewed as a drain to the hospital's budget because we do not generate billable charges.
Nurses do generate billable charges but most nurse managers are afraid to tell you this. Instead they harp about completing your charting. In the ER and ICU, your charting can directly influence the billable room rate with the charges for certain IVs and procedures. Every supply you pull out is usually a charge to the patient. Fail to check off that you applied a monitor or put the patient on oxygen and you failed to charge. You gave away supplies. I bet there are thousands of supplies you just give out to the patient and bypass the charge stuff maybe because you didn't see a need to get a specific order for the charge to be logged.
If nurses were strictly reimbursed by only limited things which is allowed by Medicare and insurances, you would have double the amount of patients for each nurse or RNs would be replaced by cheaper labor like LPNs, MAs and Paramedics.
Ask the few Respiratory Therapists who are still around how many floors they cover. Because of the reimbursement thing RTs are no longer in most ERs because they don't get anything for nebulizer treatments or just about anything they do in the ER anymore. Most don't or even want to intubate and their management don't make them because there is no reimbursement to make it worthwhile. Their scope of practice is very limited and the insurance's reimbursement make it even more limited. They can not practice outside of the hospital and get reimbursed. When they are considered worthless by the insurers, the hospitals get rid of them. But their loss is now a huge gain for Paramedics in the ERs, on transport and in home health. You won't see any RTs teaching asthma and COPD to patients outside of the hospitals like the Paramedics are now doing. I also heard they don't get reimbursed for teaching it in the hospital which is why it falls to nurses. RTs also lost out for doing ABGs which is why nurses, lab and Paramedics are now doing them in the hospitals. RTs also don't get reimbursement for home care which is why they get paid half of what they make in a hospital and have at least 150 patients to see throughout the month . RTs doing this hate it but can not find other work and this is now a big area for the Community Paramedic to move into.
Every time there is a change in Medicare, the allied health services like RT and PT can lose their jobs. Nurses should look at this as job security. I know Paramedics see the opportunities by their losses especially in the ER, transport and as Community Paramedics.
Maybe your hospital is just putting a lot of effort into those departments in an attempt to save jobs or to cushion the blow when they are fired. No hospital likes to lose those services but you do see a lot of rehab and therapies closing or limiting their services.
When something is totally dependent on reimbursement, patients without insurance and those who don't have the right insurance fall through the cracks. This is why the Community Paramedic is a big deal since some states are funding it through other means. It would be rather bad for a nurse to do a wallet biopsy for the right insurance before doing something. You definitely would lose a lot of respect then. RTs must do this when scheduling patients for Pulmonary Function test and who ever does sleep labs, (usually Sleep Techs and a few RTs) they definitely check your insurance. No insurance usually means no test.
Don't expect respect if you cannot respect other professionals especially if you don't know the whole story to what others go through to keep their jobs or to find their place in health care. Nurses have a lot of opportunities because they don't have to reinvent themselves every few months to stay employed as the US goes through some serious health care reform.
Nurses do generate billable charges but most nurse managers are afraid to tell you this. Instead they harp about completing your charting. In the ER and ICU, your charting can directly influence the billable room rate with the charges for certain IVs and procedures. Every supply you pull out is usually a charge to the patient. Fail to check off that you applied a monitor or put the patient on oxygen and you failed to charge. You gave away supplies. I bet there are thousands of supplies you just give out to the patient and bypass the charge stuff maybe because you didn't see a need to get a specific order for the charge to be logged.
If nurses were strictly reimbursed by only limited things which is allowed by Medicare and insurances, you would have double the amount of patients for each nurse or RNs would be replaced by cheaper labor like LPNs, MAs and Paramedics.
Ask the few Respiratory Therapists who are still around how many floors they cover. Because of the reimbursement thing RTs are no longer in most ERs because they don't get anything for nebulizer treatments or just about anything they do in the ER anymore. Most don't or even want to intubate and their management don't make them because there is no reimbursement to make it worthwhile. Their scope of practice is very limited and the insurance's reimbursement make it even more limited. They can not practice outside of the hospital and get reimbursed. When they are considered worthless by the insurers, the hospitals get rid of them. But their loss is now a huge gain for Paramedics in the ERs, on transport and in home health. You won't see any RTs teaching asthma and COPD to patients outside of the hospitals like the Paramedics are now doing. I also heard they don't get reimbursed for teaching it in the hospital which is why it falls to nurses. RTs also lost out for doing ABGs which is why nurses, lab and Paramedics are now doing them in the hospitals. RTs also don't get reimbursement for home care which is why they get paid half of what they make in a hospital and have at least 150 patients to see throughout the month . RTs doing this hate it but can not find other work and this is now a big area for the Community Paramedic to move into.
Every time there is a change in Medicare, the allied health services like RT and PT can lose their jobs. Nurses should look at this as job security. I know Paramedics see the opportunities by their losses especially in the ER, transport and as Community Paramedics.
Maybe your hospital is just putting a lot of effort into those departments in an attempt to save jobs or to cushion the blow when they are fired. No hospital likes to lose those services but you do see a lot of rehab and therapies closing or limiting their services.
When something is totally dependent on reimbursement, patients without insurance and those who don't have the right insurance fall through the cracks. This is why the Community Paramedic is a big deal since some states are funding it through other means. It would be rather bad for a nurse to do a wallet biopsy for the right insurance before doing something. You definitely would lose a lot of respect then. RTs must do this when scheduling patients for Pulmonary Function test and who ever does sleep labs, (usually Sleep Techs and a few RTs) they definitely check your insurance. No insurance usually means no test.
Don't expect respect if you cannot respect other professionals especially if you don't know the whole story to what others go through to keep their jobs or to find their place in health care. Nurses have a lot of opportunities because they don't have to reinvent themselves every few months to stay employed as the US goes through some serious health care reform.
I think you have a point that nurses DO have billable charges and I see this through working in an ED and our documentation does generate billable charges.
Also keep in mind that aspects of our scope and practice in most places are asthma teaching, vent management and neb treatments; even PT and OT can be most certainly done by nurses-I have done all those things in settings outside of the hospital; even in the hospital and in rehab hospitals after the initial teaching, the care is placed on nursing staff to continue the rehab process-it doesn't needing and end with therapy.
Suffice to say there are aspects of you post that miss the point that nursing doesn't disrespect other positions we encompass those settings and it is nursing's responsibility in many settings, and most of us appreciate that aspect where there are other parts of the healthcare team, but the reality is that we can and have been do in the bulk of those therapies; the recognition of nursing care transcends and IMHO, it's high time that we are charged for it, and THAT is a good thing.
I work in extended care home health. Several of my clients have expressed high disrespect for the physicians who care for their family members, so it is no surprise that I have been treated like something that failed to be flushed down the sewer yesterday. In all honesty, I never thought that nursing was going to be like this.
we encompass those settings and it is nursing's responsibility in many settings, and most of us appreciate that aspect where there are other parts of the healthcare team, but the reality is that we can and have been do in the bulk of those therapies; the recognition of nursing care transcends and IMHO, it's high time that we are charged for it, and THAT is a good thing. 
WinterLilac
168 Posts
In Australia, there does seem to be a difference between the level of respect given to EN's (LPN's) and RN's. It may be like this in the US (or whatever country other people live in). In my experience as a carer then EN and now soon to be RN, EN's are seen by some carers as 'not real nurses' or 'pretend nurses' and are sometimes not even consulted by carers who choose to go directly to the RN's. I have never cared about this, probably because I'm going on to be an RN, however I do understand the level of frustration EN's feel when staff and patients ask for a 'real nurse'. Of course we report to the RN's and always consult with them before major decisions but we didn't spend almost 2 years studying nursing to be a glorified carer.