ROLE OF LPN

Role of LPN

Abstract

A Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) is a graduate of a school of practical nursing whose qualifications have been examined by a state board of nursing and who has been legally authorized to practice as a licensed practical or vocational nurse (L.P.N. or L.V.N.). According to the role definition proposed as a model by the American Nurses' Association, the definition of L.P.N. practice has been updated to include “the performance under the supervision of a registered nurse or doctor of those services required in observing and caring for the ill, injured, or infirm, in promoting preventive measures in community health, in acting to safeguard life and health, in administering treatment and medication prescribed by a physician or dentist or in performing other acts not requiring the skill, judgment, and knowledge of a registered nurse.”

Table of Content

Contents

Introduction4

Discussion4

Conclusion7

References8

Role of LPN

Introduction

Professionalism is an aspect for the success of any person. The professional a person, the more successful he is. A higher level degree provides a person experience and knowledge. In any profession, a person having the advanced degrees has the highest skills and expertise than one, who have a lower level degree. Same, is the case in nursing, a nurse with an advanced degree in nursing would be considered more professional and competent than a nurse having a low level degree (Division of Nursing 1996).

Discussion

A licensed practical nurse is more competent in leadership, nursing, clinical, scientific, and humanistic and decision making skills. Her tasks also include training and preparation of community health, patient education and nursing management. Skills that a licensed practical nurse possesses are very essential for the professional nurse of recent times, because it helps her in taking the abrupt decision. These decisions are crucial decisions, also decisions for designing and implementing plans for nursing care, ways of understanding the patient's treatment, symptoms and danger signs (American Association of Colleges of Nursing 1995).

Licensed practical nurses are more competent and professional than the Associate degree nurses; this is the reason that they are hired in number of hospitals. As these nurses have the decision making competencies, therefore, they provide the complex solutions to the features of daily care and patient education. They prepare a nursing care plan for the entire stay of patient in hospitals. This plan covers all activities including the from pre admission to post discharge. These activities are mainly the supervising nurse's aides, designing of the discharge and the teaching plans for patients, collaborations with patients and patients.

Licensed practical nurses have a proud history of more than 50 years of caring for patients. In the beginning, their duties were limited to direct patient care, but their role has greatly expanded. Today, 26,747 LPNs in the Commonwealth of Virginia play a vital role in patient care and recovery (Division of Nursing 1996).

"People think of the LPN as a bedside nurse that just gives baths and takes people's temperatures," said Doris Barnes-Lightfoot, an LPN at Seven Hills Health Care Center. "LPNs today do just as much, medically, as ...