Licensed Practical Nurse Careers, Duties, Salary and Job Description
Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) is often called, licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), care for people who are sick, injured, convalescent, or disabled under the direction of physicians and registered nurses.
Licensed practical nurses care for patients in many ways. Often, they provide basic bedside care. Many Licensed practical nurses measure and record patients’ vital signs such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration. They also prepare and give injections and enemas, monitor catheters, dress wounds, and give alcohol rubs and massages. To help keep patients comfortable, they assist with bathing, dressing, and personal hygiene, moving in bed, standing, and walking. They might also feed patients who need help eating. Experienced licensed vocational nurses may supervise nursing assistants and aides.
Licensed Practical Nurse / Licensed Vocational Nurse Careers
Licensed practical nurses care for the sick, injured, disabled or convalescent. They bring their caring, sympathetic natures to hospitals, home health care services, nursing care facilities, physicians’ offices and other health care providers and agencies.
Working under the direction of physicians and registered nurses (RNs), LPNs and LVNs attend to patients in a number of ways.
Licensed Practical Nurse / Licensed Vocational Nurse Duties
- Measure and record patients’ vital signs such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration.
- Prepare and give injections and enemas,
- Help keep patients comfortable
- Assist with bathing, dressing, and personal hygiene
- Help patient with eating and walking
- Supervise Nursing Assistants and aides
- Collect samples for testing, perform routine laboratory tests
- Record food and fluid intake and output
- Monitor their patients and report adverse reactions to medications or treatments
Licensed Practical Nurse / Licensed Vocational Nurse Salary
Salaries vary with experience and place of employment. Full-time licensed practical nurses earned a median annual salary of $33,970 per year in 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In most hospitals salary increases are given at regular intervals. Benefits include paid holidays and vacations, health insurance, and pension plans.
| Employment services | $44,690 |
| Nursing care facilities | 40,580 |
| Home health care services | 39,510 |
| General medical and surgical hospitals | 38,080 |
| Offices of physicians | 35,020 |
Licensed Practical Nurse / Licensed Vocational Nurse Job Description
Licensed practical nurses can usually choose where they work, from hospitals to private homes. LPNs must keep an even temper, especially when caring for difficult and unhappy patients. They must stand for long periods and often have to help patients move in bed, stand, walk, or dress. Licensed practical nurses always work under the direction of registered nurses or doctors.
Practical nurses generally work forty hours per week. Sometimes they work at night and on weekends, earning premium pay for these shifts. Jobs in private homes often involve longer hours. Each case places different demands on the practical nurse’s time.
Licensed Practical Nurse Certification
National Association for Practical Nurse Education and Service
National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses
National League for Nursing
Licensed Practical Nurse News
- Avoiding Common Medical Thinking Errors - Mon, 24 Nov 2008
Medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S., killing nearly 100,000 people a year, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Additional medical errors harm another 1.5 million patients. The annual price tag for preventable patient injury resulting from medical mistakes is in excess of $30 billion. As the principal providers of primary health care, nurses are in a unique position to significantly decrease the likelihood of a medical error [...]
- Winter Cold and Flu Survival Guide - Wed, 22 Oct 2008
It arrives each year as inevitably as the falling of the leaves and chilling of the winds. The winter cold and flu season is upon us. Over the coming months, a symphony of sniffling noses, aching heads, sore throats and hacking coughs will sound everywhere. As a nurse, it’s especially important to be aware of and brush up on cold and flu prevention strategies.
Pass it on
More than a billion colds besiege Americans every year, with an estimated five to 20 percent of [...]
- Immunizations: First Line of Defense Against Infectious Diseases - Mon, 29 Sep 2008
The start of school means new shoes, No. 2 pencils, a new box of crayons – and shots. While immunizations may not rate high on a child’s list of back-to-school activities, they are his or her best line of defense against the serious infectious diseases like measles and polio that used to affect children by the thousands. Today in the U.S., most school districts mandate that children receive immunizations against childhood diseases before enrollment, but a majority of U.S. adults still fail to [...]
- Going Digital: Pros and Cons of Electronic Medical Records - Wed, 27 Aug 2008
Information Technology is revolutionizing the healthcare industry. Digital records provide exciting opportunities to speed patient care, improve the quality of care, increase patient safety, enrich research, and enhance public health efforts. But there is concern in the medical community that increasing reliance on information technology will weaken the human connection that is the cornerstone of U.S. patient care, and particularly nursing care.
The tenth annual survey of America’s 100 [...]
- Workplace Collaboration Benefits Medical Professionals and Their Patients - Mon, 28 Jul 2008
Medicine has become so specialized that a myriad of healthcare providers and facilities may be involved in a patient’s care. According to the American Medical Association, nearly 200 board-certified physician specialties are recognized in the United States. Due to the specification and proliferation of medical treatments and technology, it can take an army of medical professionals to successfully treat a single patient.
Today, a patient’s medical care team may include the primary care p [...]