Re: Where Nurses stand with new regulations

louiseRVN — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:59:39 GMT

Maisy it sounds like you have found a great place to work in which you are part of the team. the majority of our vets are very good at allowing the nurses to treat in-patients in which we see fit. However we do have a couple of 'old style' vets which think Nurses are getting too 'big for their boots'

I had a disscussion we one vet the other day who saw the benifits of the initiation of nursing care plans and the nurses involvement in which we are able to set a nursing plan. Hopefully with bit of time the other vets will get used to it. I think its a great benifit to the practices.

Thats really interesting about the senior pet clinics. We dont have them but I have set up weight clinics. We dont normally test them for thyroid as its expensive and I would generally send them back to the vet if i thought was a problem. I am jut really interested what the clients thoughts on it. As I said before do they think just 'mere nurses' or indeed the other way-mini vets. Its like when they ask us to give them more medication when they have not seen a vet-are they awre of our limitations?

I dont suppose they will have any idea about the changing profession only time will tell what will happen.

Re: Where Nurses stand with new regulations

Maisy — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:55:31 GMT

I think where clients are concerned, some are happy to discuss clinical aspects with nurses yet others think we are far too minion to know such things. With the overweight dogs for instance who never lose weight and 'look' thyroid, I do mention to the client that sometimes weight gain can be a medical condition and bloods could be checked for this. I'll then inform one of the vets so they're aware of the case and go from there. With the senior pet clinics we run we can take bloods there and then without a vet informed, though the case is discussed with a vet so that they can take over the case if necessary.

Some of our clients do find cost an issue a lot of the time though during triage, if you're putting a patient on iv fluids, you normally need bloods too so these will be taken and then run if the vet wishes. I have no problem discussing or recommending pre op bloods for instance but this is normally gone through during the pre op check with the VS, luckily most of our clients do appreciate nurses knowledge and will acknowledge what we've explained.

Our team works pretty well though in that the vets will sometimes ask nurses opinions on medical cases, and we can put our opinion across without being made to feel dumb. Nurses are able to work out care plans needed for each patient and are left to maintain those after the vet has done ward rounds. While I don't expect to tell a vet what they should and shouldn't be doing, I feel that as professionals we should be entrusted with maintaining the care of patients and being able to offer our opinion to cases we nurse.