Hello! I was ask to do an essayabout the difference between the renal Nurses and general nurses with regards to their job description, knowledge and practice... Can somone help me please..thanks....

In my unit we have no renal nurses. They have a poor concept of dialysis and kidney disease. They know no more than the techs who have been so briefly and incompletely trained for their jobs. I would be embarassed if I was a college educated RN and knew no more than a tech who graduated from McDonalds. But they just seem to settle into the job for the paycheck and forget about the "standards" they learned in nursing school.

well, i am so sorry to read this, but hopefully they know what they are doing...I will be very enbarrassed too if i graduated as a nurse and just settle for that money...well i am very proud of myself as a dialysis nurse because these renal patients needs more than just people putting them on the machine, but they need people who knows what they are doing and the consequences of it as well...

In the unit I go to the techs. and nurses both take the same course so that they can learn the specifics on renal patients. I think some of them need a "brush up" course! Lin.

I agree with Lin, some of them need to take a refresher course. I asked the 3-11 nurse what the range for URR was and he didn't know. I can't imagine a a nurse working with diabetics wouldn't know the range for blood sugars!

It is a shame to read that so many feel dialysis nursing staff are poorly trained. I have been repairing hemo equipment and water treatment equipment for many years and must admit that a nurse that couldn't discuss URR's is scary (but I have met a few that would not know ranges). Hopefully there are enough competent nurses in the units you dialyze at to make up for the lack luster ones. One last note URR are not sugar based or diabetic related we use urea reduction ratio to determine how adequately dialysis patients are being dialyzed.

Also, there is not a "range". The target URR should be 65% or greater.

interesting Chuck.....
I was told the "range was 65 to 80" per the lab report copies I recieve and discussion with the MD. He also said anything about this is questioned re:accuracy.

I was recently told by staff that they will soon start using Ktv because it's more accurate. Is that true?

Lin,

I don't know if I would say that kT/v is more accurate or not because there are at least a half dozen different formulas that could be used and each one would give a different result. The main thing that kT/v takes into account that URR does not is the actual length of treatment and depending on the formula used, it will also account for residual renal function.

As always Chuck, Thankyou for answering my post. Patients help inform patients, but when staff takes the extra time aside from work to do that I'm impressed! Lin.