Who has more autonomy?

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  1. Who has more autonomy?

    • 7
      Nurses
    • 8
      Respiratory Therapists
    • 2
      Radiologic Technologists

17 members have participated

In your opinion and based on your own experiences, which profession has the most autonomy: Nursing, Respiratory Therapy or Radiologic Technologist?

Thanks in advance.

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It seems like Radiologic Technologists have the least, but that could just be my perception. Nurses' and RTs' levels of autonomy seem to vary depending on their position/level and their workplace policies.

In any case, this is a hard question to answer since most nurses haven't been RTs and most RTs haven't been nurses.

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Given the vastly different nature of the work, I wouldn't know where to start making such comparisons between these professions.

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Specializes in ICU.

Every facility has different policies. Where I work now, neither nurses, nor resp. therapists have much autonomy. That said, I have worked in hospitals where both had lots of autonomy. My current hospital limits what the nurses can do, and I work ICU, so that sometimes handicaps me, but that is the way it is.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

I agree with SoldierNurse22. The nature of the work between the three is very different, they have different scopes of practice, educational requirements, and so on. It also depends upon what is meant by "autonomy", specifically, relative to what?

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Homework question? A poll on an anonymous internet board does not result in research data, OP, and your faculty will not be impressed at the citation.

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In my facility nurses and respiratory techs work together but separately. Each has autonomy in their area.

For example I give my meds, but RT feels the patient does not need their respiratory treatment. I can talk with them about it but can't force them to do the treatment. It's their area. Just like they can't tell me the patient might need tylenol. We can discuss things with each other like RT might say "the patient seems warm, are they running a fever?" Or I will call RT to check out the patient to see if they might need a treatment.

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