by Adminnaoum » Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:01 pm
I don't know if it's still true of the VA now, but I learned how much nurses do when I did my surgery rotation there.
VA's were (probably still are) horribly understaffed. Two nurses covered an entire floor, so needless to say they were overwhelmed with work. As a result, we the med students ended up doing everything (OK, now I'm sounding like we were on House) - setting up IVs, drawing blood, ABGs, ECGs, changing wound dressings daily. It's a lot to do.
I think if people knew what nurses did on a daily basis nursing salaries would be higher and there would be a lot more people in nursing.