Okay, I always thought I would love being a nurse and it was always my goal to go back and finish a nursing program at some point. However, I recently began working as a patient care tech in a hospital and I have to say-I am shocked by what nurses really do, and I am not so sure now it is for me or not. The RN's and LPN's where I work do paperwork for almost 12 straight freakin' hours. I rarely see them get the chance to interact with patients, even when they would like to. They are too busy doing mountains and mountains of documentation. I watched the RN on duty last night to see how long she actually interacted with a patient person to person and it was probably about 12-14 minutes total. Even though the money is extremely better for nurses, techs have it made in a lot of ways. We get to interact with the patient a lot, get tons of thank yous and appreciation, both from patients and nurses, we really don't have to worry about any of the patients major concerns (oh you want meds, I'll get the nurse), and we don't have the managers calling us down freaking out about paperwork mistakes because ours are not usually as serious as the nurses. Teching is low stress and fairly enjoyable right now, and I am afraid that nursing would be a lot of stress and low enjoyment, albeit for a lot of money. Opinions??
do you work in LTC? If so, that is a BIG part of it. I just got my LPN and will finish RN in May, and you couldn't pay me to work at many of the LTC places in my area, because the nurses don't have any real pt care to do. Meds are delegated to med. assistants, pt care is delegated to the tech's, other than a few nursing skills that tech's can't do (which most pts in LTC don't need) its just paperwork. I know quite a few tech's, who went on to get their LPN or RN just so that they could get off their feet. Now, I'm sure that there are places where nurses in LTC get to do a lot of pt care, but in my area of the country its all delegated away to assistive personnel.
In a hospital setting its often much, much different. During my clinical rotations we got few skills at the LTC's but once we went to the hospitals, the nurses barely had time to get their paperwork done, they were ALWAYS with pts.
What most everybody has written is true, it all depends on what unit in the hospital you work.
If you are on a Med/Surg Floor, then the nurse doesn't have much time wiith thier patients, I love it when the Dr writes for Diabetic education at Discharge... Now if I can get in tough with our diabetic educator then she will see the pt (but at our hospital admin wants us to D/C a pateint within 2 hrs of the written d/c order, do you think the patient get real diabetic educations??) But on a Med/Surg floor I as a LPN will start off with 6 patients, so you do the math on how much time I'll be able to spend with the patients.
Our Tele unit, the nurses get 3-4 depending on thier acuity level, I have been floated to this unit (I am ACLS Cert) and thought I have gone to heaven 4 patients, I'm able to spend time with my patients, talk wth them and asses thier real needs...
In Nursing if you don't document then it didn't happen, plain and simple, so on the Med/Surg floor the nurses are CYAing through out the shift, because LOTS happen...
Int he ER, treat them and street them is the moto, very basic charting not much to chart....
OB is a whole different animal... enough said....
But in todays healthcare the almight dollar is the bottom line, not real patient care, so if you plan on going into nursing be expected to working your a$$ off if you work a M/S floor
Okay, I always thought I would love being a nurse and it was always my goal to go back and finish a nursing program at some point. However, I recently began working as a patient care tech in a hospital and I have to say-I am shocked by what nurses really do, and I am not so sure now it is for me or not. The RN's and LPN's where I work do paperwork for almost 12 straight freakin' hours. I rarely see them get the chance to interact with patients, even when they would like to. They are too busy doing mountains and mountains of documentation. I watched the RN on duty last night to see how long she actually interacted with a patient person to person and it was probably about 12-14 minutes total. Even though the money is extremely better for nurses, techs have it made in a lot of ways. We get to interact with the patient a lot, get tons of thank yous and appreciation, both from patients and nurses, we really don't have to worry about any of the patients major concerns (oh you want meds, I'll get the nurse), and we don't have the managers calling us down freaking out about paperwork mistakes because ours are not usually as serious as the nurses. Teching is low stress and fairly enjoyable right now, and I am afraid that nursing would be a lot of stress and low enjoyment, albeit for a lot of money. Opinions??
hmm really??? Because I work as a transporter and I go to all the different specialty floors and definitely see nurses working hard,breaking their backs and running like chicken with their heads off,I see all the hospital staff going to cafeteria and almost never nurses....sitting all the day by the desk/charting,forget it!!!!!!
Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.
I say, if the money doesn't mean much to you, forget nursing school and keep working as a PCA! Plenty of people do it for a living, and you seem to enjoy it.
Yes, the care techs do have a lot more patient interaction; that has been my experience in every hospital that I have worked in.
As an ICU nurse, I get to spend more time interacting with my patients... that being said, for a task which takes 5 minutes, I spend about that much time charting said action after I'm done... grrr...
I work in ICU as well. Youll have enough patient care to make you vomit.
however. expect to spend about 20 minutes charting on something that takes you 3 seconds to actually do.
you can thank your insurance companies and politicians for that btw
sbyramRN
304 Posts
I work in the ER, and I spend most of my time with my patients, not documenting.