Scope of Practice of RPN/RN

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Hello Canadians,

I'd like to know what's the difference in scope of practice between a RPN and RN in Canada. I'd also like to know the educational requirements for both RPN and RN. What is the difference in pay between RPN and RN. I don't plan on working in Canada but I'd like to learn more about nursing in Canada. Thanks in advance.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Need to be a bit clearer do you mean Registered Psychiatric Nurse or Registered Practical Nurses? There is a province that uses Registered Psychiatric Nurse as RPN

Each province will have their own expectations but these links may help you understand

For Ontario http://www.cno.org/international_en/intro/expectations.htm

CSGNA http://www.csgna.com/role.htm

BC http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/leg/hpc/review/part-i/update-lpnurse.html

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Specializes in intensive care, recovery, anesthetics.

Very much depends on the province.

5cats

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Registered Practical Nurse, sorry for the confusion.

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OK, Ontario is the ONLY province that uses the term "RPN" across the rest of the country it's LPN.

I know that in Alberta our scope is so close to the RN's now, it's ridiculous. Basically I can't pull a central line, pierce blood or travisol bags. I can't do Charge and I can't take phone orders in acute care but can in continuing care.

Or is it only Ontario you are interested in?

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Just Canada in general, I'm not interested in one particular province. Any information is helpful. I work with many Canadian nurses who are wonderful. They gave me a basic rundown on their experiences as a nurse in Canada.

What I thought was interesting was that you don't ever pick your clinical rotations up in Canada. I was told by a L & D nurse that during her rotation, she got to do L & D the whole time. I found that kind of odd. She has since went back to Canada, but she never went into detail about the RN program there.

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Never heard of anyone doing that. We got told which hospital we would be at and which units to work.

The only "choice" we got was we could tell our instructors which services or branch of nursing we were interested in and hope they would let us do our final placement prior to graduation. A lot of people wanted postpartum but usually units will only take one RN and one PN student at a time on the final placements.

Some go to clinics, some to continuing care, geriatric programmes, other areas of the hospital (medicine, surgery, gynie).

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

The education for PNs is generally two years now and it is a diploma program and the RN has gone to a BSN degree for licensure in some of the provinces.I would expect eventually all will require the degree.

Like Fiona said the scope for PNs is pretty close to that of an RN.

When I was in school I had no real say in my clinicals except I did a mental health placement in a large mental health facility that was by choice. They would only take 6 students so only those who really wanted to go went. I did get to choose by final placement as wel. It was where I wanted to work and am working now.

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Bumping this thread forward.

What is the scope of a RPN in Ontario, and how does it compare to the scope of the LPN within Alberta?

What is the hourly starting wage?

Just doing some comparative research.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

From what I have heard the PN in Ontario scope is pretty much the same as Alberta.The things that Fiona listed plus we can't access/flush PICC lines are the things I know I can't do as a PN in Ontario. It does also depend on the employer. Each workplace will have it's own policies regarding scope of practice.

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Specializes in Hospital nursing.

At the hospital I work at, scope is pretty close...we can spike and hang blood, take phone orders, push IV meds, mix all our own meds, start IVs, take blood, scrub for surgery...PNs in Ontario do ALL the same controlled acts as RNs. They "say" PNs deal with only stable patients, but that isn't true many times. PNs in Ontario work in ERs, ICUs, etc...it really depends a LOT on what your particular employer "says" you can do/can't do...some utilise RPNs to their full scope of practice, others do not.

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Thankyou for your responses. Can I ask what the starting wage is for a new grad PN? Here in AB it is $23 and change.

How do the RNs treat the PNs?

Here I find they refer to themselves as "nurses" and call us only LPNs. As in "we'll be holding a meeting with the nurses and the LPNs".

Petty of me to notice? Seems they don't want to call us nurses...

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