COVID 19 Testing

[Marasmus1]

Just curious about if you are asked to routinely perform COVID Test in the inpatient, PHP or Psychiatric ED?

In my program, nurses and techs have been refusing to perform routine COVID 19 tests on patients. Residents basically test every single patient admitted to inpatient or PHP. When we asked the PD about this, PD says residents are responsible for COVID 19 at this time not the nurses. PD basically says suck it up for now and do your job. I am just wondering why COVID 19 testing is beyond the scope of nursing practice. There are shifts I basically administer covid 19 tests to 10 patients while nurses refuse to touch the test. Kind of annoying.

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[thomasina]

No. Nurses do this at my institution and I imagine there would be outrage if psych residents were asked to do this.

 

[Ironspy]

Nurses do this at my institution

 

[SourceOfDenial]

Just curious about if you are asked to routinely perform COVID Test in the inpatient, PHP or Psychiatric ED?

In my program, nurses and techs have been refusing to perform routine COVID 19 tests on patients. Residents basically test every single patient admitted to inpatient or PHP. When we asked the PD about this, PD says residents are responsible for COVID 19 at this time not the nurses. PD basically says suck it up for now and do your job. I am just wondering why COVID 19 testing is beyond the scope of nursing practice. There are shifts I basically administer covid 19 tests to 10 patients while nurses refuse to touch the test. Kind of annoying.

Nurses unionized at your institution?

 

[Marasmus1]

Nurses unionized at your institution?

Yes

 

[TexasPhysician]

No that’s crazy. Either admin is to blame for lack of PPE, or nurses should be fired for refusing to do their job.

 

[Merovinge]

All done by nurses where I am at.

 

[Stagg737]

Just curious about if you are asked to routinely perform COVID Test in the inpatient, PHP or Psychiatric ED?

In my program, nurses and techs have been refusing to perform routine COVID 19 tests on patients. Residents basically test every single patient admitted to inpatient or PHP. When we asked the PD about this, PD says residents are responsible for COVID 19 at this time not the nurses. PD basically says suck it up for now and do your job. I am just wondering why COVID 19 testing is beyond the scope of nursing practice. There are shifts I basically administer covid 19 tests to 10 patients while nurses refuse to touch the test. Kind of annoying.

This is absolutely ridiculous and the fact that your PD isn’t taking your side is a very bad sign IMO. Idk where you’re at, but this sounds like the sign of a malignant program. I could maybe understand this if you were an EM or IM resident, but you’re not. Unless you regularly do other tests or blood draws at your program (which would be very odd), there is no reason you should have to do this for COVID.

I would honestly report this to ACGME, as there is no excuse for this.

Yes

And there is your problem. Even so, sounds like the administration doesn’t have your back. Pretty sure the nurses at our program are unionized and residents aren’t even allowed to see patients with COVID or suspected COVID (only attendings do).

 

[clozareal]

Nurses do it, but I can see why they wouldn't want to. Physicians collect all kinds of other swabs but COVID testing has mostly been done by nursing or lab techs. I would make sure the residency candidates that are applying know this as an example of how their inpatient rotation might be.

 

[Bartelby]

For the nasopharyngeal swab physicians have to do it where I practice. This has not fallen on residents, either the attending does it, an NP does it, or we send out to the respiratory clinic for testing. No psychiatrist is forced to do it if they choose not to.

 

[Marasmus1]

Thank you for the responses. I honestly do not mind doing the test here and there. However, we are asked to do the test for every admission to inpatient or PHP and the ancillary staff refuses to pitch in. This comes from the administration as far as I can tell and the PD just executes it. I actually find it a little insulting to use psych residents for routine COVID swab. Interestingly nursing does the routine bloodwork but does not want to touch the Covid test. Mainly because Covid test itself means extra 5 minutes work if not more ( Including documentation, labeling, administering the test etc) and when they refuse to do it, it automatically falls on residents.

 

[Stagg737]

Interestingly nursing does the routine bloodwork but does not want to touch the Covid test. Mainly because Covid test itself means extra 5 minutes work if not more ( Including documentation, labeling, administering the test etc) and when they refuse to do it, it automatically falls on residents.

Yea, that's a joke. What happens when there's an overnight admission? Does the on-call resident have to come in to do the swab? If physicians commonly do draws or swabs that's one thing, but when it's all done by nursing techs and they suddenly don't want to do this one specific type? I'm sure our residents would be letting our PD and admins know this is a problem (though I think our PD would fight pretty hard to prevent this from happening in the first place).