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Read this article about a CNA with an expired license passing herself off as an RN.
The Lovely Harvey used to be a CNA and The Boy's godmother is a current RN.
Wanna know the difference?
It's not much.
Some prerequisite classes, a couple tests and a license.
They agree there's not much actual difference in the skills needed for the job.
It's a license requirement.
Harvey's mom was a CNA as well, and is old enough to remember when it was just "nurse." All the subcategories of nursing started with delineations in responsibility.
Entry level had more scut work and less responsibility.
In many cases, no formal education was required. People were trained by the institution.
I suspect that lawyers for malpractice insurers stepped in somewhere here and now formal education is mandated for all but the glorified janitorial work.
But, early on, the education was the same and experience was how you got the higher positions.
Now, you need additional formal education and licenses to even apply, making it more expensive to meet the prerequisites and thus requiring more salary to compensate for their investment.
I will bet you that my first aid training from The Army is sufficient to provide most of the care that this, arrested, former CNA did on 4,400 patients.
I speculate on this because I did that care for Harvey when she was recovering from her shoulder replacement. Husbands are allowed to be unlicensed nurses on their wives with no formal education! We had an RN on call for emergencies, but most of the actual care is simple and easy stuff.
UPDATE: It is important to note that the person in question was doing the job successfully and it was only a background check prior to A PROMOTION that got her busted.
My 45 year old daughter just got her associates degree, and is continuing on to get her BA to be a teacher here in Michigan. She told me that it is now a FIVE year degree.
ReplyDeleteI have often said that once I learned to read, I could have simply never attended school again, but just educated myself. The two biggest reasons that I appreciated school was to learn to play music, and to play sports.
Once I was about 9 or 10, I read anything that I could get my hands on, from the dictionary to encyclopedias to novels of the day. Sadly it now seems that many of our kids in school are not reading at grade level. But they an use the heck out of cellphones and such. Priorities somehow changed when I wasn't looking.