This was on my mind earlier and I just wanna see what you all think. So I was working at a skilled nursing facility a couple months ago. During one of my charting breaks at the nursing station, I was having a conversation with the RN in charge. She was a fairly new and young RN, having graduated a few years ago. We were talking about this and that, mainly things related to nursing and work. I'm a pretty straightforward person and I told her how frustrating I found it that despite being in the vicinity, the LVNs would not help with something as simple as a pull-up, for example. I told her that I found the 'hierarchy' in the facility strange and that it didn't demonstrate teamwork. No joke, she actually told me something along the lines of, "The CNAs have their jobs and the nurses have theirs. As CNAs, you guys are supposed to network with each other and help each other out".

I immediately responded by saying that it doesn't make sense, since we're told in our training (the CNAs, at least) that the patients are everyone's responsibility. She basically repeated the same thing just differently, telling me that nurses are in charge of other things and CNAs deal with more of the direct care. After that, I didn't say anything. I found it pretty amusing that this individual would go into healthcare with that mindset, implying to me that nurses are too good to help out and that CNAs are not to reach out for help to the nurses. At least that's how I took it. Why is this hierarchy so common in skilled nursing?

Having done registry for a couple months now, and having been to dozens of facilities, it's the same damn thing in nearly every facility I've been to! Nurses don't want to help out with the simplest tasks, and what's worse, is that sometimes they'll be super rude when you request help. I had this experience constantly with a young LVN that I worked with in the same facility. Incredibly rude and just not helpful. I'd ask questions and she straightup told me once "I don't know what to tell you, you gotta figure out how you're gonna deal with that".

Why is this attitude so common in skilled nursing? To my fellow CNAs that have been in the game for decades, has it always been like this?