The little things that an aide does that make a difference...

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Specializes in Nothing (yet).

This one is for the nurses....

What little things can an aide do to make your job easier? I am a nursing student who is a Med Surg aide and am always trying to find nice little things to do for the nurses to help them out....beyond those tasks that my job requires. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

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Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

The act of actually doing your job, taking initiative to do your work without having to be told, is a priceless gift in and of itself these days. >>

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Hell, all I need is somebody to do their job. Being a nursing assistant is not an easy job and I think a lot of people think it's going to be. Just anticipate what the nurses might need that you're working with. Report important things to them. Be available.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.
The act of actually doing your job, taking initiative to do your work without having to be told, is a priceless gift in and of itself these days. >>

Couldn't have said it better. Thank you for caring enough to ask though.

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Informing the nurse about abnormal vital signs or changes to the patient's condition, or new skin tears makes a very big difference.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept.

nurses have always told me that they love the fact that i take initiative and do things before they have to ask for them. it always seems to make them smile when they ask you to do something and you let them know that you've already done it.

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Specializes in Acute care, Community Med, SANE, ASC.

Just the fact that you have asked this questions tells me you are probably already doing a great job. As others have said, simply doing your job and doing it well will be great. Doing it with a smile and a great attitude is even better.

My other thought would be to think of your assigned patients as your patients too--not just the nurses' patients. I have worked with techs who have caught patient's going bad before the nurse did because the tech was in the room before the nurse was. One tech I worked with was so good that if I was behind and she came to me and said she had been in all my patients' rooms and they were all okay--I knew they were. She kept me sane when I first started nursing because I was always behind. She was very astute and very aware of the condition of her assigned patients--she's a nurse now and I'm sure she's a danged good one.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

God bless techs like you. Really, for floor nursing, just getting the vitals and helping pt's to the bathroom so I don't have to is HUGE!!!. I do enjoy when my tech alerts me to abnormal vitals and I have this one tech that I absolutly LLOOOVEEE!! One night she noticed one of my patients starting to "act funny" so she decided to get some vitals and take a FSBS on her own! The FSBS was 50 something so I got some Dextrose and pushed and things got better. I WAS SOOOO PROUD OF HER! She is not in nursing school and doesn't want to be a nurse (can't really blame her) but man if she did want to I'd be the first in line to help her through it.

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Specializes in Nothing (yet).

Thanks for everyone who has posted. I try to be proactive every day and help out all that I can. The suggestions are great and it sounds like I should continue moving forward in that direction.

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