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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Health Care |
Debate over RN job duties, can anyone help? |
I used to work as a CNA and I had to wipe many butts in my day. I'm now going to school to be an RN and I'm just curious about this. My boyfriend says that many many times an RN will actually do the same work as a CNA including wiping butts and changing diapers for the elderly. I didn't think that this was in an RNs job duties. Can anyone help to clear this up. RNs do whatever they have to do to meet their patient's needs. Not all facilities have enough assistive personel(CNAs or LPNs) to do some of those activities of daily living like feeding, bathing, and tending to toileting needs. You will definitely at some point still be doing all of these things, but as an RN you are expected to delegate these other tasks to assistive personel if you have them available to you. Source(s): RN It may depend on where you work...but RN's are usually responsible for more of the patient care management than hands-on patient care. You would be responsible for passing medications, changing dressings, charting, patient care plans, managing staff (LPN'S and CNA's) doing some treatments. However, if you're going into RN training with the hopes of glamour...you're choosing the wrong field It depends where you work and what type of RN you are. I don't believe that you will never never do it again.(cleaning butts) As far as i know, the ones that worked at an assisting living situation, wiped butts. They did everything the CNA did if she worked specially at night time. Why would they need a CNA at night shift if they had an RN? So it all depends of the shift work hours, residence, hospital, nursing home...etc. There are such things as visiting nurses, the ones that just show up when a patient is terminal and need once a week check-ups.....so what is an RN, a glorified CNA? I worked as a HHA and got to do the job of an RN at times. Some RN's don't have the problem of passing their duties down to a HHA. I would not do it because it would cause me and the sick person problems to be doing the nurses job. SO, yes, your boyfriend can be right if you don't check all the facts of where you will be working and when you will be working.... ??? Its interesting that you cite the ER as an example where you would do the least amount of the "scut" work, but in fact that is probably one area where you would to the most. There are generally no CNAs in an ER and the RN is totally responsible for the total well-being of their patients, and ER patients are often very ill: vomiting, incontinent, constipated etc. Th ER nurses I worked with did a vast amount of wiping--it was hard work. Also, unfortunately, you can't just think anything "is just (not) an RNs job duties". A more realistic approach is to think your duties will include ALL that you did as a CNA plus a whole lot more (and if they are less you will be lucky). If you were a CNA you should have an idea what the RNs did as well and if you were't there.....who would do it?. ER PA (and I do my share of wiping as well!) |
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