Working PT in Long Term Acute Care

I've been working as a Physical Therapist for 11 years now on different settings and currently 4+ years on a Long Term Acute Care Facility. This setting is between Acute Care and Long term care which I feel that the latter dominates due to 95% of our patients are elderly. Work is somewhat rewarding and I've been learning a lot everyday.

The usual Nurse vs. Therapist rivalry is present and is actually somewhat extensive. The trends that I've been seeing on our facility is that young and enthusiastic nurses doesn't exist and what we ended up with Nurses' that have 20+ experience under their belt which can be handy on our setting but those 20+ years really takes toll on your "patience with patients". Attitudes flare up everyday and because we are on a setting that patients have been in the hospital for more than a week and sometimes months, patients and families already have a depressed, angry and moody attitude. These are the patients that needs more attention and care...and what do they ended up with? Call lights not answered, beds not changed, needs not met.

"Passing the Buck" is also played here frequently and sometimes it just gets absurd. Can you put back Mr. X to bed? Can you get up Mr. X, the doctor wants him up? I almost died laughing when a nurse asked me if I'm in charge of showers (meaning showering a patient). Is transferring patients not part of nursing care? This is one of my favorites, a patient came in later in the afternoon and wanted to go to the bathroom. Sorry, you cannot get out of bed until therapy evaluates you..and that will be in the morning...

Anyways, this is just the tip of the iceberg and there will be more to come in upcoming updates.

;)