This person outranks me?!

[Aunt Slappy]

Since I started working in health care as a CNA nearly six years ago, I've had many experiences that have left me wondering how some people get into the positions they hold. I was not a youngin when I started this, I was nearly 20 years on from earning a bachelor's degree in political science and had spent more than a decade raising children at home before I began my health care career. I've worked enough to know that promoting people into leadership who shouldn't be there is not unique to health care by any means.

Lately I've a had a few interactions with a RN coworker that leave me again thinking, "How in the world does this person outrank me?"

#1 He's collecting an induced sputum sample in clinic. (I work in a public health clinic dedicated to TB testing, detection, treatment, and prevention.) He comes to me with the sputum sample tube, thankfully in a sealed specimen bag, holds it up, and says, "She vomited a little food when she coughed. Can we still use this sample?"

#2 He comes to me and says that the biohazard trash near the sputum collection rooms is full, and then asks what he should do. He's worked in this building longer than I have and knows exactly where the biohazard room is.

#3 During a case study presentation in a clinical staff meeting, in which the patient has been described as being 50 years old and 17 weeks pregnant via IVF, he asked what IVF stands for.

I just.......really?! This guy has, when you count RN prereqs I haven't taken yet, two more years of education than I do. He makes at least ten dollars more an hour than I do based on that fact. It's getting to the point where it takes all I have not to be extremely rude when he asks me these stupid questions (yes, there is such a thing).

Share your best "I can't believe s/he outranks me" stories!

[Truth_be-told]

When I realized my Bachelor's degree in secondary education was not going to be self sufficient after getting 50 dollars a day with no benefits being a 'substitute' teacher (professional baby sitter/prison guard for young people), I turned towards healthcare, which was my actual first intent. Then it became clear that all the public school jobs around here were locked up for those who had connections. So I took all the money which i had slaved away for as a substitute teacher and a security guard and another heavy lifting job at a local beverage distribution center and other odd job to get into nursing school. I was accepted, but there was a 2 year waiting list, so i went ahead and completed my 2 year associate's degree in respiratory therapy. Right after graduating from RT school and passing my cert and registry, i entered nursing school. I was working at least 60 hours at a local hospital which I can only describe as a chop shop.

OK, we can indent here, lol, not like faceless book. The things i see these almighty Rns and BSNs do since i started, and the way they feel threatened by people like me who can do things that they cannot without their self impressive and ego driven titles. Having drawn ABGs, they come to me to get difficult blood draws. Someone has a mucous pug that is causing their oxygen saturation levels to plummet, i can isolate the source of the plug via auscultation and naso/tracheal the source of the plug and clear the airway.

Whenever there is a code, seconds count. I have been in a situation where someone coded and the PA who was there slapped on a partial non rebreather mask with an E cylinder with a regulator that only allowed 6 L/min oxygen flow rate. In a code, as close .to 100% oxygen is mandated ASAP to minimize hypoxic insults. I was basically told to get the "f away, I was merely an LPN from some pool when this happened. So when 9/11 arrived, the guy ripped off the simple oxygen mask and put on a full non re-breather at 16 or so liters, what is indicated for someone who has coded to keep the bag 2/3 inflated to keep the victim from suffocating from re-breathing and thus suffocating from their own C02. I know for a fact that many of these "I am better than though because I don't have to work the floor or get my hands dirty" types are not in fact floor worthy, they can't do the work that they kick us around and threaten us to do because of their privileged status, and will make any and every excuse to justify being somehow superior to us let alone be qualified or in any position to dictate to us what to do. Those extra years of school mean NOTHING compared to those of us who work and know the floor, so get off your high horses

[elijahvegas, ASN, RN, EMT-P]

Why are we concerning ourselves with someone who views their colleagues by "rank"? I work woth pcts and doctors, we all work together, there are no "ranks".

I smell the familiar stench of an inferiority complex here masked by the typical "man he has more education than i do but look how much smarter i am than him and im just a cna hawhawhaw"

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

you have no bedside nursing experience? then you are NOT a nurse.

As you are a CNA, what do you know about nursing ?

[dianah, ASN]

Thread closed for staff review.