Where I work sometimes if there are not enough CNAs or float pool coverage available they will assign the RNs to work as aides. I have written my concerns about this to the nurse manager. They say we do the job of an aide but you "work to your license" which means I have as much responsibility legally to the patients in my care as their assigned nurse does yet I get an aide's report which usually does not even tell me why the patient is there, only the chores that need to be done!
Granted this doesn't happen all that often but I resent my license being put in potential jeopardy because of the hospital's lack of planning. This is what staffing agencies exist for! The last time this happened I told the person who made the assignments out that I didn't want to do the assignment, but I didn't refuse to do it, she just changed the assignment without any hassle.
This practice is illegal in some states but the state I live in (AR) is not one of them.
What are your experiences or thoughts on this issue?
As long as I had access to all the information I would normally have as an RN, that would be fine with me.
Well I am a RN and even as a RN I do cna's job along with my own I still clean patients, turn them. monitor I&O's, I still feed them --I was a cna for over 20 years before becoming an RN and I knew that even when I became an RN that part of me that was a cna is what makes me a good nurse because I am not afraid to wipe a patient's rearend or to clean thier peri area--the only thing I would not like is for them to put me in a CNA position and not expect me to act as a RN because I could not do that
Well I am a RN and even as a RN I do cna's job along with my own I still clean patients, turn them. monitor I&O's, I still feed them --I was a cna for over 20 years before becoming an RN and I knew that even when I became an RN that part of me that was a cna is what makes me a good nurse because I am not afraid to wipe a patient's rearend or to clean thier peri area--the only thing I would not like is for them to put me in a CNA position and not expect me to act as a RN because I could not do that
Spoken like a true nurse. It would be an honor to be one of your patients
Eaglelady
201 Posts
Well I am a RN and even as a RN I do cna's job along with my own I still clean patients, turn them. monitor I&O's, I still feed them --I was a cna for over 20 years before becoming an RN and I knew that even when I became an RN that part of me that was a cna is what makes me a good nurse because I am not afraid to wipe a patient's rearend or to clean thier peri area--the only thing I would not like is for them to put me in a CNA position and not expect me to act as a RN because I could not do that