What Do You Think? Can You Be A Nurse If You Can't Do Bedside Care?

[Kooky Korky]

Should a student have to be able to do direct care in order to become licensed as an RN?

Must an RN be able to give direct care in order to stay licensed?

This topic came up in a discussion at work recently when one of our techs was involved in an accident that left her unable to give hands-on care.

I think that a person who can learn what a nurse needs to learn (chemistry, anatomy, physiology, biology, etc.) and can pass the exams, there is no reason this person can't be licensed as an RN.

Feasible work would include teaching, doing the questioning part of Admissions, maybe other tasks.

What do you think? What are some other tasks this type of RN could perform?

[llg, PhD, RN]

Susie2310 said:

I can't think of any non-bedside nursing jobs that don't require actual hands-on nursing experience: Case management, utilization review, informatics, insurance company nursing, telephone triage, nursing education, clinical documentation review, all require bedside nursing experience.

But it's not just conventional, traditional "nursing" jobs. There are many other types of jobs out there. My friend in the other health care discipline who added a nursing degree to add to her knowledge is a great asset to the world. A person could work as a research consultant or statistician assisting nurses with research -- who might choose to get a nursing degree to better understand the profession she was working within. Someone with an informatics background who wanted to understand nursing better to enhance their informatics work. A legislator ... an administrator ... an physiologist teaching nursing students ... etc. etc. etc. Lots of people work closely with nurses and might find it helpful to study nursing. We should let them.

And in the future, new roles for nurses are being developed every day. We should not be closed-minded and believe that all of the future roles will be just like the ones of the past. If physicians can include the handicapped among their ranks, so can nurses. And that means moving past this notion that "real nurses" must work in the inpatient environment and developed the technical inpatient skills before learning anything else.

[elkpark]

llg said:

But it's not just conventional, traditional "nursing" jobs. There are many other types of jobs out there. My friend in the other health care discipline who added a nursing degree to add to her knowledge is a great asset to the world. A person could work as a research consultant or statistician assisting nurses with research -- who might choose to get a nursing degree to better understand the profession she was working within. Someone with an informatics background who wanted to understand nursing better to enhance their informatics work. A legislator ... an administrator ... an physiologist teaching nursing students ... etc. etc. etc. Lots of people work closely with nurses and might find it helpful to study nursing. We should let them.

And in the future, new roles for nurses are being developed every day. We should not be closed-minded and believe that all of the future roles will be just like the ones of the past. If physicians can include the handicapped among their ranks, so can nurses. And that means moving past this notion that "real nurses" must work in the inpatient environment and developed the technical inpatient skills before learning anything else.

I've known a number of physically disabled physicians -- and they all got through medical school and residency meeting the same educational standards and requirements as anyone else. Shoot, I used to know a physician with significantly deformed hands who was better at starting IVs than many RNs I've known. I still don't know how he managed to do it, but he did.

I would never suggest that one has to do hands-on nursing care in order to be a nurse -- but there is still the question of getting through nursing school and meeting the minimum established standards for licensure. Once someone is licensed, I don't care if s/he never actually touches another human being for the rest of her/his career. But what about getting through school and to the point of getting licensed?

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Thanks for your input, everyone.