Now since hospitals are no longer hiring LPN's I think CNAs could possibly have more job requirements later in the future. CNA's already do EKG's and blood draws at some hospitals with further training.
In the LPN course at my college they do not teach IV's, they are told they wont do anything invovling IVs but yet when hired they prepare them! The only thing they cant do is push meds.
Somebody will have to pick up the duties right, or you think Im wrong here?
As a CNA in a Hospital that no longer employs LPN's, I can tell you that the CNA's have picked up many of the LPN duties. And the pay rate is FANTASTIC. Starting pay for an experienced CNA in the hospital is $17/hr. That is with a minimum of 5 years experience. The CNA's go through extensive training and are required to maintain a minimum of 12 CEU's a year. We are trained to run EKG's and to Intubate patients, insert foley's, Phlebotomy, Accuchecks, etc. We can hang IV meds, we cannot do pushes, and we cannot pass narcotics. CNA's in our hospital are required to hold a CMA certificate, so that we can legally pass uncontrolled medications. We cannot start IV's. We cannot do assessments. I have looked into LPN pay in the few hospitals that still employ them, and I found that I am actually making the same, and in some cases more than the LPN's. Our hospital notified the LPN's that they were going to no longer employ them, that if they wanted to stay, they were encouraged to attain an RN and that they would assist in the funding. Many opted not to further their education and lost their jobs. They were given two years to make the decision. So apparently they were not interested in being RN's. Nursing homes and some home health and hospices still employ LPN's here. I am currently enrolled in the RN program and am loving it. And since the nursing program is through the hospital, scheduling is a breeze!
Oh My- that is incredible! See I kinda figured somewhere this maybe happening. Can you please tell me where you are from and what hospital you are employed at? Thanks
CNAs intubating patients?????Are you SURE about that? I'd be very interested in a state that allows unliscensed people to intubate patients.....Sounds like it would be a good idea to avoid that particular state..In NY, RTs can't even intubate patients.
What state are you located in that would let a CNA do that in a hospital? That is the first that I've heard. That's scary that any state would allow a CNA to hang IV's, insert foleys, and intubate patients? I would be mortified if I were in that hospital as a patient.
I know that in the assisted living they do have Med Techs and they're allowed to pass meds. Even still, I wouldn't put that responsiblity on anybody other than nurses. There's more than just popping meds and passing them out to patients. Can you imagine what will happen if you pass out the wrong heart medication to people whose hearts beat a few times a week.
Regarding asking someone to go away, lets be mature here. It's good that we get input from everyone. We learn something new everyday. We may not agree with each others opinions but we must respect them.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
CNAs intubating patients?????Are you SURE about that? I'd be very interested in a state that allows unliscensed people to intubate patients.....Sounds like it would be a good idea to avoid that particular state..In NY, RTs can't even intubate patients.
Yeah, I'd like to know what state that is too! No way in hell would a hospital in my area allow a Nurse's Aide to intubate patients. RNs don't, and sometimes even the ER doc has to call for help if it's a difficult one.
In my state, also, RNs are the only people allowed to give IV push medications. So, it seems really weird that an unlicensed medication tech could give an IVP and the LPN couldn't. Oh yeah, and the 12 CEU thing. How can a state mandate CEUs for someone who doesn't have a license? I don't know. I guess there really is huge amount of variety and I live in a state that has a pretty broad scope of practice for LPNs.
ekg, phlebotomy, and accuchecks are pretty simple so that i can understand a cna doing. but intubating and catheter inserts i would be learly to have a cna do that for me. it takes practice, practice, and even more practice to get it right. i remember when we had to sign off on catheter insert we had to practice and practice in order to get it right. our instructor made sure that we had it 99.9% perfect or else we'd flunk. i asked her why was she being "anal" (didn't use that term) about that and she explained that when we'd go out in the field we were working under her license. she also went on to explain that one wrong move and you may insert an infection along with the catheter. of course we practiced on the dummies but i do see her point. i didn't see it then as we were only practicing on the dummies but she said we must treat the dummies as a real patient. intubating, now that's another story, we touched on it as to what it was, but we never actually did it or went into detail as it's not within our scope of practice as a lvn.
When I was an aide/tech at the hospital, we learned accuchecks, ekgs, how to insert foleys...basic stuff. We watched and learned how to intubate, certainly not allowed to do it. While I was a tech, I took acls, pals and btls, even though I could do these things, I was not able to do it in the hospital and I wasn't an EMT, so it wasn't happening in the field either. I took these courses to make me a better person in a code as opposed to one of those standing around
watching. As for IVs, at that point I was allowed to spike a bag, prime it and that...but definitely not allowed to do anything else with it. Even when I became an LPN, I still wasn't allowed to do most of those things, perhaps he's just a little confused?
Regarding asking someone to go away, lets be mature here. It's good that we get input from everyone. We learn something new everyday. We may not agree with each others opinions but we must respect them.
Tell this to the person who was making the rude comments. I didnt like being "be little d" just b/c I didnt know something. Thats all. It is great we get info here, very good reference and I appreciate this site very much! I visit this site everyday and I want to thank all of you who are here to encourage, teach and give great advice. :tku:
I've encountered Fuzzy before on this website and I don't think the person really meant to belittle you and I didn't think the comment was rude either. I think Fuzzy was just making a statement that who would want to work for less. True it could have been worded a little bit better, but I really believe that the person was just shocked to read something like that is actually being discussed around the medical field. As you stated you didn't know and you just stated what you heard. There's nothing wrong with that. Try not to get offended by something so minor because most people on this board don't really mean to be rude in any way. For the future if you feel like someone is being rude to you, don't bark back, just let them know politely that you were offended by their comments. When you approach someone like that then they will respond to you politely and usually apologize because they didn't mean to offend anybody. I've had that happen to me, and I immediately apologized because I didn't know that I offended someone, and that wasn't the intention.....Your opinion on what you heard was valid, and that's why you posted it because you wanted to learn more about the rumor. Thank you for bringing that up because we all learned something new from it.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
That's so true, NurseCubanita. I've had people misunderstand my posts a few times. It happens.
One of the managers of a nursing agency here told me that caregivers , who don't have even CNA training are allowed to catheterize home care patients if they get a short training course. That surprised me, but they also take care of patients on ventilators, because Medicaid won't pay for 24/7 nursing care.
We had a patient a few years ago who decided she wanted all of her care by the caregivers, and/or CNAs. They were trained to do the procedures, but not to assess or "critically think", or do patient teaching. They couldn't recognize subtle signs of her condition heading south before it got very bad. So, in my mind the value of nurses is in what they know much more than what tasks or procedures they can be trained to do.
I have shown RNs how to bolus patiences. It still doesn't make me a RN or even qualify me in the region of being a RN, LPN, or LVN. The Medical Field is a big world and CNAs should not cross roads with nurses. There are grey areas at times but to even suggest the grey will become black or white -between CNAs and Nurses - I don't think so.
Now since hospitals are no longer hiring LPN's I think CNAs could possibly have more job requirements later in the future. CNA's already do EKG's and blood draws at some hospitals with further training.
In the LPN course at my college they do not teach IV's, they are told they wont do anything invovling IVs but yet when hired they prepare them! The only thing they cant do is push meds.
Somebody will have to pick up the duties right, or you think Im wrong here?
I wasn't about to read all 58 replies, but the hospital I worked for in AZ had very few LPNs and were looking to phase them out. They wanted the CNA's to become PCTs so they'd be able to do foleys, glucometers, D/C'ing IVs, EKGs and things along those lines- certainly nothing to do with intubation or administering medication as I read on another post.
lina.561
171 Posts
Oh My- that is incredible! See I kinda figured somewhere this maybe happening. Can you please tell me where you are from and what hospital you are employed at? Thanks