So I took my dog to the vet yesterday morning to be spayed, we (my dog and I) are called into the assessment room by this woman who introduces herself as the "RN" who will be taking care of my dog.
Ofcourse I am skeptical, I question her "You are a Registered Nurse?"
She replies, that yes she is a RN, the training is EXACTLY the same, except that it is for animals, and that she had to pass a board exam. She actually goes on about it for a couple of minutes.
At this point I am so stunned, that I decide not to say anything, as I am already in a highly irritated mood because I am sleep deprived, starving because I am fasting for blood work, and actively fighting with my insurance coverage to get any prescription filled anywhere, and I am afraid of over reacting. I make sure that I sound highly skeptical when I say "Oooookayyy"
I am usually not very political or sensitive to nursing slights. I am comfortable with who I am and happy with what I do. I laugh at slights to nurses on tv more often that not, but this just kept itching at me.
When I left they gave me a addressed envelope and a survey to fill out. I am considering using the envelope to write a letter to the vet to inform her that she has at least one tech that is calling herself a RN and that by allowing this to go on in her practice that she is opening herself up to potential liability.
A correction in my post, as I stated above. My Friend, WHo is a Dr. Vet. Says the first two years they spent in classess with medical students then the next four years her studies were in animal courses.
Now, if they take a certified test and they called them RNs the bone is with the certification of Veterinary not with the nurse. I just do not see why it is so important to pick a bone over this topic. The Veterinay Nurses are not taking our jobs from us and neverthless taking money or our patients. Which I would love to hand over several of my patients to make my load lighter.
She is working our pets and not in our fields. We are paying them big time money for them to tell us our pets has fleas, or ear mites, to cut our pets nails, assist the dr with surgical proceedures and etc.
Ok, I give lets call out the NCLEX-RN police and make an arrest on the veterinary nurses in this country and other countries. Because other vet. nurses are coming over and has the same job titles and will say the same. Do you think they will go to court and spend 10/20 years in state prision? Or do You think the lawyers make a deal of 5/10 with patrole in 2 years and house arrest for a year? I have to keep watching this thread.
I just think this funny, as RNs we have other battles that need attention than what a vet. nurse is calling herself. If her certification says Vet. register nurse than what can be done? Nothing at all. Why waste the time on this and we need to address matters suchs a patient caseloads, nurses working numerous of overtime without a break, nurses not receiving recognition as a profession, oh salaries that is a huge problem and etc. Why not discuss those issues and get angry enough to fight for what we deserves as nurses?
As nurses we worry about who has more labels behind their names and if someone else has them. If it will make you feel better to call or write to the dr. vet about his employee calling herself a RN than go for it. You do not need anyone's approval to take action about vet. nurse is stealing the orotection RN label. Do not be surprise it the Dr. Vet responses and state she is according to her ceritificate. I hope you do correspond with the Dr. Vet and we can see how the Vet. Nurse obtain her creditials. I would like to hear the results. Please do so and everyone can be happy and understand the results. Then everyone and including myself can move on to other important issues as nurses.
Good luck with your correspondance and please post the result of your communication with the Dr. Vet.
Ofcourse I am skeptical, I question her "You are a Registered Nurse?"
She replies, that yes she is a RN, the training is EXACTLY the same, except that it is for animals, and that she had to pass a board exam. She actually goes on about it for a couple of minutes.
Geez, I wasted too much money on school. I could have gone to vet tech school for nine months and not only graduated with my BSN but I would have known how to groom a pooch as well!
If you write the vet you are doing all of us an injustice. You need to CALL her and see if she 1) knows of this practice (she might not) and 2) if she approves of this practice. Then you will want to know how she plans on ending it.
Similar thoughts have crossed my mind. About ten years ago, I looked into being a vet myself and went to talk to the people at the vet school. They told me that the training is very similar to human medicine, the chief difference being that vet students get through school faster (I think they told me it takes about 6-7 years, whereas human med school including pre-med takes 9 with the one-year internship). What blows my mind is that MDs have ONE species for which they are responsible for treating; vets have dozens! Like your post said, I wouldn't have the first clue what normal lab ranges would be for hamsters, lizards, and the like.
When I was in college I was dating a guy who just graduated from medical school. We were talking about what he really wanted to do, he wanted to be a vet but he couldn't get into any of the schools so he settled for an MD. He could get into that school.
I don't think there is a huge amount of debate over the education and skills needed to treat lots of species vs. just one. But we aren't talking vets, we are talking techs. Not nurses, techs.
At this point we have far too many CNAs, CMAs, vet techs, and a huge assorted other number of professions all claiming to be nurses. Bottom line, they are not. They are techs. There is not a thing in the world wrong with being a tech or doc or nurse or Admin Asst, or any other profession. But we use words for a reason, so others know what we are talking about. It just isn't okay to call every person out there a registered nurse.
I do not know why everyone is so upset about other professions that use the name Nurses. Do you know the vet Dr.s are real human drs first and then go on to learn about animals?
Before I went to nursing school, I had read a book about nursing that went into all the different specialties. In this book, they had profiled a woman who was an RN-graduated from an accredited school of nursing and passed the NCLEX. She then took some additional training and was working with dolphins at an aquarium. Maybe this is similar to what this other woman did? If not, I too have a problem with her saying she is an RN. There are many positions in healthcare that deserve respect so I don't think misrepresenting yourself is the way to go. I'm going to try to find the name of that book though. I remember being surprised that she was a RN but working with animals.
OK, I'm still searching for that book but I typed in Vetinary RN into my search engine and several sites came up that profiled people who had been working as RN's for years and decided to work in a vet's office either because they really loved animals or were burnt out with "people nursing" . I guess that this specialty really does exist but not too many people know about it...
As a fomer Licensed Vet tech ( which i am guessing that this "RN" was), I can tell you that the "training" ( educational requirements) is not the same-even considering a two year RN program-the level of classes required are quite different ( I actually checked this out with my local vet). While it is true that in some other countries techs USED to be called "nurses", they aren't anymore, and never were called so here in the USA. More importantly is the legal fact that this person has just decided that she is "the same" as an RN and calls herself so; I think two things with this 1) Legally, she is misrepresenting herself,
2) what kind esteem does she have that she feels the need to "upgrade" her status, as if being an AHT is low or something. Personally, speaking as both a tech and a nurse, I find this "cutsey" and irritating......I'd mention it to the Vet-
Specializes in Cardiothoracic Transplant Telemetry.
at this point i am so stunned, that i decide not to say anything, as i am already in a highly irritated mood because i am sleep deprived, starving because i am fasting for blood work, and actively fighting with my insurance coverage to get any prescription filled anywhere, and i am afraid of over reacting.
i am usually not very political or sensitive to nursing slights. i am comfortable with who i am and happy with what i do. i laugh at slights to nurses on tv more often that not, but this just kept itching at me.
or should i just let it go?
okay, i am responding to my own original post because some of the responses i received felt that i had really overreacted. i don't feel that i truly reacted at all. i questioned her about what she meant when she called herself a rn, sounded skeptical, knew that i wasn't in the best frame of mind, and decided to explore my feelings further. in doing so i decided to come to this forum for other points of view, as i have many times before, to see what my colleagues felt about the situation.
i said in my original post that i was thinking of writing a letter, not reporting this person to the authorities. i wasn't looking for her to be fined, jailed or fired. i just didn't feel comfortable with her using the title that i worked for. she has her own title, which in my state cannot legally include the term registered nurse, or nurse; and she should use that. i have no problem with her describing her duties with clients at the clinic in an effort to make owners feel confident with the level of care that their pet receives, but it irritates me to hear her call herself nurse.
please don't think that i am flaming anyone with this post. i responded to a quote from my own original post as a way to clarify my own position, and not to belittle or upset any of those who responded to it. i appreciate everyone's opinion, now as in the past when i have posted.
I'm still in nursing school, but last quarter we had a full lecture on title protection. I think it is very important for us to keep our title protection active and not just start to allow anyone to take that title.
Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.
I think it is very important for us to keep our title protection active and not just start to allow anyone to take that title.
Agree 100%.
There is enough in the way of misconceptions about what we do and how we're trained (mostly of our own making as a profession, but that's another thread ) - an RN or LPN implies a very specific thing. Actually, I would be OK with the title Veterinary Nurse, but not RN or LPN unless has passed the training and testing to become one, and even then, if you're not functioning as an RN or LPN in that job, why use the title?
I'm with the OP - I don't sweat every imagined mis-portrayal of the profession; I don't get in a dither over the sexy nurse Hallween costumes or raise my BP over Gray's Anatomy, but at least respect each profession enough to acknowledge the very specific and difficult training associated with that job.
Geez, I wasted too much money on school. I could have gone to vet tech school for nine months and not only graduated with my BSN but I would have known how to groom a pooch as well!
If you write the vet you are doing all of us an injustice. You need to CALL her and see if she 1) knows of this practice (she might not) and 2) if she approves of this practice. Then you will want to know how she plans on ending it.
Currently I am a nursing student, but I am a Registered Veterinary Technician with certifcation in Emergency/Critcal Care and degrees in veterinary medicine, biology, and phramacology. School for veterinary technicians ranges from two to four years depending on the degree you want to get, and is no way cheaper than any other degree, including nursing. Grooming is not a job of a veterinary technician, any more than cutting hair is the job of a LPN or RN. An educated, certified/registered/licensed(depending on which state you live in) veterinary technician is the life blood of an animal hospital, just as nurses are the life blood of a hospital.
) - an RN or LPN implies a very specific thing. Actually, I would be OK with the title Veterinary Nurse, but not RN or LPN unless has passed the training and testing to become one, and even then, if you're not functioning as an RN or LPN in that job, why use the title?
button2cute
233 Posts
Hello,
A correction in my post, as I stated above. My Friend, WHo is a Dr. Vet. Says the first two years they spent in classess with medical students then the next four years her studies were in animal courses.
Now, if they take a certified test and they called them RNs the bone is with the certification of Veterinary not with the nurse. I just do not see why it is so important to pick a bone over this topic. The Veterinay Nurses are not taking our jobs from us and neverthless taking money or our patients. Which I would love to hand over several of my patients to make my load lighter.
She is working our pets and not in our fields. We are paying them big time money for them to tell us our pets has fleas, or ear mites, to cut our pets nails, assist the dr with surgical proceedures and etc.
Ok, I give lets call out the NCLEX-RN police and make an arrest on the veterinary nurses in this country and other countries. Because other vet. nurses are coming over and has the same job titles and will say the same. Do you think they will go to court and spend 10/20 years in state prision? Or do You think the lawyers make a deal of 5/10 with patrole in 2 years and house arrest for a year? I have to keep watching this thread.
I just think this funny, as RNs we have other battles that need attention than what a vet. nurse is calling herself. If her certification says Vet. register nurse than what can be done? Nothing at all. Why waste the time on this and we need to address matters suchs a patient caseloads, nurses working numerous of overtime without a break, nurses not receiving recognition as a profession, oh salaries that is a huge problem and etc. Why not discuss those issues and get angry enough to fight for what we deserves as nurses?
As nurses we worry about who has more labels behind their names and if someone else has them. If it will make you feel better to call or write to the dr. vet about his employee calling herself a RN than go for it. You do not need anyone's approval to take action about vet. nurse is stealing the orotection RN label. Do not be surprise it the Dr. Vet responses and state she is according to her ceritificate. I hope you do correspond with the Dr. Vet and we can see how the Vet. Nurse obtain her creditials. I would like to hear the results. Please do so and everyone can be happy and understand the results. Then everyone and including myself can move on to other important issues as nurses.
Good luck with your correspondance and please post the result of your communication with the Dr. Vet.