The LVN essay
The LVN is a highly valuable member of the medical care team. By collaborating with RN, they can carry out an array of patient care roles in many clinical settings. While the Registered Nurse has an array scope of practice and has a role in more comprehensive patient assessment and responsibilities, the licensed vocational nurse can carry out focused assessments to know the health status of patients. The licensed vocational nurse performs a focused assessment, which is an appraisal of a person’s condition and situation currently, and taking part in comprehensive assessment by the registered nurse, supporting the ongoing data collection and choosing the person to receive the information and when to be informed. For instance, the licensed vocational nurse assigned to a group of patients can carry out a focused assessment of the essential symptoms, breath sounds, heart rate, and others and communicate any abnormal findings to the registered nurse for a more comprehensive assessment to be carried out.
Unlike the focused assessment of the licensed vocational nurse, the registered nurse conducts a comprehensive assessment that involves a more extensive data collection for personal patients and also families, groups, and the community where they operate. Unlike the registered nurse, the licensed vocational nurse may not examine, synthesize, or analyze data or generate the nursing care plan. The registered nurse has a role in anticipating alterations in conditions and also emergent changes in the health status of the patient and an additional difference to earlier conditions. The comprehensive assessment by the registered nurse, unlike the focused assessment by the licensed vocational nurse, also involves examining the effect of every nursing care, implementing nursing diagnoses and interventions, and examining the need for any shift to the interventions.
Like the registered nurse, the licensed vocational nurse can carry out a physical assessment. Both the licensed vocational nurse and a registered nurse may obtain health care history data. Like the registered nurse, the licensed nurse can carry out certain screening or assessment activities, like a nutritional assessment or developmental and growth screening, oral health screening, substance use screening, cognitive screening, suicidal risk, and mental health status.
Another standard is the education of the registered nurse and licensed vocational nurse. The significant variation between a registered nurse and a licensed practical nurse is the education needed. For registered nurses, the programs focus on doing skills as well as thinking skills, while licensed vocational nurse programs seem to focus on the doing skills. Therefore, a licensed vocational nurse program can be completed in less time than a registered nurse program and typically cost less. A licensed vocational nurse student takes around twelve months to complete their program, and many complete the licensed vocational nurse program at a technical college or community level. Licensed vocational nurse learners participate in supervised clinical training to get hands experience in the field. Licensed vocational nurse students also take classes that focus on biology, human anatomy, and pharmacology. Licensed vocational nurse program is very much structured around learning how to carry out the appropriate skills needed to care for the patient.
On the other hand, the RN program takes around 18 to 36 months to complete, and the registered nurse has to obtain a professional nursing degree. Different registered nursing degree programs also determine the length of the program. However, they all focus on different clinical and hands-on training experiences and also classes on physical, social, and behavioral science. Registered nurse programs may involve courses on research and pharmacology, ethical and legal issues, and team leadership. Licensed vocational nurses can further their careers by enrolling in bridge programs and obtain increased roles and get the transition to registered nurse.