the difference between rpns psws rns mds
pt's ots there's so many acronyms but we
actually all worked really closely
together as a one unit team
according to the college of nurses we
care for clients that have a stable and
predictable outcome and if our client is
not meeting that criteria then we
collaborate with an rn who has
additional education my role as an rpn
in long-term care
i'll have up to about 30 residents on a
unit and it's my role to
care for them throughout the day to
administer all their medications to
provide any treatments necessary
just to try to keep them safe i've
worked in surgery i've worked in
oncology i've worked all the medicine
units stroke clinical teaching unit
and when i started there
it kind of became more clear to me that
there isn't
really that distinction anymore between
an rn and an rpn
my role has expanded
exponentially
the more that i've learned the more i've
been trusted with and the more i take on
rpns
are burnt out in particular especially
over the past year with kovid and
staffing crisis and the workload that's
just on our shoulders right now is
immense and our scope has changed
drastically and i have seen that and
lived that for the past 16 years
and we seem to be losing more and more
rpns
i definitely would say that i feel
undervalued by the government because i
don't think that they
realize just how many people and how
many different disciplines it takes to
run a hospital you know the people who
are cleaning to the people who are
working with the patients to the people
who are doing administrative policy
stuff everybody has a role and if you're
walking into that hospital you
definitely have something to do
with health care
but when the pandemic hit
that changed a lot
i got to the hospital
um
and uh
because at the time i was
working multiple jobs
and then i had to pick you know
government said no you can't work more
than one facility you got to pick
so i picked the hospital
we've seen multiple covet patients come
through our small hospital that i work
in we have very limited supplies we have
very limited staff it's very physically
and emotionally draining there's lots of
times where you're crying at the nurse's
station
because you just can't give the care
that you want to one of my nursing
colleagues did test positive and was
intubated for 10 days
and she still has not returned to work
as the pandemic has progressed the
staffing issues have become more
apparent and the nurses are leaving the
profession
in droves
in the beginning being called a hero it
felt great to be acknowledged and to
feel like you know we're really making a
difference and we're helping our
community and we're helping people
through all of this and then all of a
sudden when they took away the
additional kovid pay it was kind of it
kind of felt like a slap in the face
because we were still mid pandemic we
were still dealing with all the same
issues yet all of a sudden it was like
it was over but it wasn't
if i try to talk about
how
working in this pandemic has affected my
mental health they say well weren't you
prepared for this isn't this what you
expected
and this is not at all what i had
expected
there is so much that is asked of us and
we do it because we care
but
we don't
feel
that the care is reciprocated
i love my job as a nurse i love nursing
but i also need to
live my life i need a career
that pays
for me to live my life
and it certainly has not in a very long
time
i think the general public
doesn't really understand that rpns are
nurses too and we're a valued member of
the healthcare team we provide excellent
care with positive outcomes every single
day we're caring people like that's why
we're in the profession we're here to
help
and we want to provide the care and it's
just what we love to do so you know we
just keep doing it i have even caught
myself saying that i am just an rpn when
i'm
talking about my career with friends or
family or colleagues
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which is degrading
because i am a nurse and i'm a damn good
one
and i would like to be treated as one
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you