could RPNs and RNs here in Ontario practice profession fully as a volunteer?

Trishrpn80 · Mar 18, 2014

I guess you are not looking at the right hospitals. Lots of job opportunities available for RPN's in various settings. There is a shortage of jobs incthe major metro areas but rural is hiring. With that said our scope is unfortunately job specific. Some agencies and hospitals haven't quite caught up with everything we can do so some people are not practicing to full scope. We dont have one union for everyonr like ONA so our payscales are from $10-29/hr. Keep on trucking.

I do not think you can volunteer at a hospital as an RPN due to insurance issues.

Trishrpn80 · Mar 18, 2014

I am assuming you are talking about Ontario Canada...

There is Ontario California

On this forum you never know. :)

jrcbtst · Mar 18, 2014

yep ontario canada i mean,, i live in downtown toronto so there must be .00001% chance i land a job here or even less,, :crying2: any suggestion which locations are good to find an rpn job? thank you

joanna73, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2014

You can't volunteer as an RN or an RPN/LPN due to scope of practice and liability issues.

There are jobs but you'll need to be flexible. Landing a job in a major city with no prior experience is slim, especially now in ON with the proposed cuts looming. It's going to get worse there for a while. Start looking at facilities outside of the GTA, continuing care, clinics, or whatever you can find.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Mar 18, 2014

The other thing you need to know about volunteering is that it doesn't count as experience in any employer's or college's eyes. They want you to be paid for your work, partly as a measure of competence and partly as something they can validate with a phone call. No hospital, clinic or long-term care home is going to allow anyone to volunteer in what would be a professional capacity, as joanna73 says, because of liability. People who volunteer for disaster relief or for medical missions to third world countries do that in addition to their paying jobs.

jrcbtst · Mar 18, 2014

oh i see... thanks for making it clear to me... i really should focus on getting a paid job then... all aling i thought volunteering could prevent my license being revoked because i thought i could find volunteer rpn job here in ontario.

vintage_RN, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2014

Yeah I was wondering, I've never heard of a hospital in Ontario that doesn't accept RPNs...except maybe sick kids. We are abundant in all the hospitals around here!

loriangel14, RN · Mar 20, 2014

Mount Sinai didn't used to hire RPNs but I don't know if that's still true.

PotentialRPN · Apr 1, 2014

Hi Eh Team,

I have a quick question. I'm currently volunteering at a LTC facility for a dementia study. When I apply for the RPN course, does this mean I can't mention this as some experience of working with the elderly? I'm not volunteering as an RPN at all, I'm just talking to patients and trying to understand how dementia affects the elderly.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Apr 1, 2014

You can definitely use your volunteer work on your RPN program application to make you more attractive to the admissions office. Where it won't help you is in gaining employment, although it could be mentioned. And it wouldn't count (under most circumstances) for practice hours when renewing a practice permit through CNO or any of the other colleges (regulatory bodies) of nursing. I think I see where your confusion arises: the gradual shift of regulatory bodies to calling themselves "colleges", where you see that and you're thinking "school". Is that it?

PotentialRPN · Apr 1, 2014

Yes, I believe that was the problem. When I hear 'colleges' I tend to think of Mohawk etc instead of Nursing regulatory boards. Good to hear I could use my volunteer experience for my applications to different programs though.