What Is This??

Nurses General Nursing

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Someone has to define to me the logic and rationale behind the nurse, who while doing her treatments, stops, walks a quarter mile to go find the CNA responsible for the patient she desires to change the coccyx dressing on only to have the CNA change the dirty brief of that patient so that her work area is clean?

Are any of you out there this nurse? Can you explain to me with just cause why you wouldn't just change the brief yourself? It would save you a good bit of time, you see, the time it took you to go find the CNA and the time it takes the CNA to finish what she is doing, you could have had it all done twice.

CAN SOMEONE OFFER AN EXPLINATION OF THIS BEHAVIOR?

~ just something I always wondered about, have I been doing it wrong?

Thank you nur20, I guess I misphrased that... I am VERY proud to be a CNA, often a bit unsure of myself, but still proud. Whatever the situation, I do what I can to take good care of patients and help every nurse - even those who don't help me. I also make sure to profusely thank the nurses who do help, or those who ask me for help instead of just passing a duty over to me. Those are the ones that turn a "plain ole' busy night" into a "busy, but good night"!

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Yes there is a special designation for these nurse. It is beyond the CNA, LPN or RN......it is the.....Certified...

L.A.N.*

I believe that the specialization is pretty much industry wide however small in number.

*L.A.N. Lazy As$ Nurse......hopefully to be soon DOWNSIZED outta here.

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When I worked an Administrator for an assisted living I spent the entire first 5 hours of (more than) one my days doing showers because our shower aide called in sick. Did it put my paper work behind? Probably. Was I not available to answer phone calls? yep. Did I have to cancel a meeting or two? Sure. Who gives a sh**?!!!

Who do you work for the patients or the people that put those little titles after your name? Some nurses need to just get over themselves and ask themselves why am I a nurse? If the answer begins with "I" and not "the patient"......QUIT!!!!

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I love the LAN title, sadly I have met more LAN's than I care to admit. What I wonder most often is how the LAN sleeps at night.

WHat I find to be insulting is the LAN who proudly procalims she isn't a LAN...........what an insult to my intellegence.

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if i have to repeatedly tell the same cna what to do, or if i have asked her to do it and it is still undone, or if i find that i am the one doing all of the cna work i will walk a mile if i have to, find her and she IS going to do it.

one night ALL of the cnas were making personal calls at the desk. i couldnt even get on a comp to chart. i answered ALL of my call lights for two hours. 11 patients. i gave out the bedpans, i wiped the butts, i passed out the snacks..i did my job and hers. she was socializing.

finally right in the middle of passing meds a call light keeps ringing its not my patient but i answer it anyway. pt needed to be taken off the bedpan and the whole room smelled SOOO bad.

that was the last damn straw. i didnt have time for that right then because i was already behind doing the cnas job. and the cna who put her on KNEW she was on it.

i told the patient wed be with her in a minute.

i went looking for the blood of that cna. of course i couldnt find her. what the cnas do on our unit...cos they choose to...is split up the whole floor. so my cna was up the hall doing accuchecks on someone elses patient.

i asked her where that particular cna was and mine wanted to know why. i told her because her pt needed taken off the bedpan.

MY cna asked ME why i couldnt do that.

oh was i pissed.

i said that is NOT my job

that is NOT my patient.

i dont know how you guys are splitting up the work. you are assigned to ME...we have OUR own patients. you are responsible for THEM. not the other nurses patients.

ive been doing YOUR job and mine all night and now im behind in my meds. i am BUSY.

she looked at me and said...oh just nevermind..ill do it.

i said thats up to you.

this whole thing took about 2 or 3 mns. i would not leave a pt on a bedpan for a long amt of time.

had i not found a cna on my side of the hall i would have done it myself. as usual.

so you dont know what the whole story is. there might be more behind it.

im not above cleaning fluids or working WITH cnas but im not gonna do both jobs while shes doing someone elses work or sitting in an empty room with a friend and chatting.

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I am in total agreement with you thisnurse!

There is always the exception to the rule! Sheesh,,I don't know how you made it as far in to the shift as you did without grabbing the little witch.

God knows a good cna is worth her weight times ten in gold.

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Right on this nurse!

I wonder what cna's would say if THEY suddenly had to do ther peoples work like the secretarys and the PSA's beides their own. They wouldnt be so flip about that I'm sure. A good CNA is worth her/his weight in DIAMONDS. A crappy one isnt worth his/her weight on cow poop.

Tonight I had a full assignment, 1 CNA on the floor so finger sticks, vs, snacks, poop patrol was done by yours truly along with doing CPR for 1/2 hour on a code blue (my arms feel like lead)

I've said it before, I'll say it again.....I CAN"T DO ANYMORE THAN I ALREADY AM!!!!!!!!

thanks as alaways for reading and posting interesting posts.

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If I needed help turning this patient I would look for the responsible CNA. If I found a bunch of patients woh didn't look like they've receive proper attention for a while I would find the proper CNA. The CNA is there to assist me. So, if I need her for patient care, I see no reason NOT to look for her and utalize her assistance.

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Kay Kellyandtheboys,

Now, you left me wondering to what extent you go to find the cna.....If I need help turning someone,,,I grab the first one I see...doesn't have to be the proper one in fact, could be another nurse, I have even grabbed the DON on occasion. If I find a bunch of pts that need some attention....I grab the right cna.

If you stumble across a soiled brief during a dressing change,, do you clean it.....or find the cna.

The letters CNA stand for certified nursing assistant, though I never really consider them MY assistants, I consider them more the patients assistants. They work under me and follow my direction but assist the patients more so than me. Yes they help me incredibly (the good ones) with their observations, vs, cbg's what nots.....but the patients are who they truley assist.

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Specializes in ER.

i think the answer is that the first time you find a job undone you do it yourself and mention in passing that you have done it for them.

the second time you are periodically asking them how they are doing, are they keeping up ok, and if you find they have lied, or have prioritized their needs over the patients, then you could do it for them instead of making the patient wait, but you mention it again, and say, "i thought you told me .....?"

the third time, if the patient is stable, go get them to help you clean them up and afterwards say "we really need to talk about how we can make sure both of us can get our work done so the patients don't do without" tha cna's response to that would determine whether or not i would write up the incident.

all of the above assumes that the cna in question is being lazy, instead of just chronically overworked, or stuck in some kind of emergency with a family etc. sometimes people just have a bad night too.

another reason why someone would not clean the mess herself would be pregnancy, and not wanting to touch infected stool. (more likely to be a case of lan:rolleyes: :mad: :eek: )

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where i work there are a FEW fantastic cna's. i would do ANYTHING for them. i am so happy when i see they are assigned with me.

then there are others who are just terrible. they keep getting written up by ALL the nurses for the same things over and over and over.the one i mentioned above in particular i can tell you most of her night is spent on the phone at the desk. doesnt managment see this?

cant understand for the life of me why they arent let go. and its not that i dont like them personally cos i do...its just that they dont do their job.

cna stands for certified NURSING assistant so yes i feel they are assigned to ME.

no they are not my slaves and i am very respectful of them cos i did that once too. i wont forget what that was like. if i have to answer for them then by god they are gonna answer TO ME.

ive been burned more than once by lying cnas...thats not gonna happen again

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:rolleyes: I really think sometimes that RNs that do not do tasks as bedpans etc don't because they really don't know how. I know it sounds stupid but I know for a fact that you can go through nsg. school without ever having done basic bedside care. I have worked with a number of new grads that never had the opportunity to do these basic tasks. Suddenly they have an RN behind their name and expected to do it all. I think we would do a great service to all our new grads to have them work with a strong CNA. As a new grad 20 yrs. ago I learned some valuable information from the CNAs I worked with as a team member.
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