Patient Care Technician II
(Female, Age 34) from Aurora, CO
This is a REAL-LIFE job profile written by a Female aged 34 who works as a Patient Care Technician II in Aurora, CO. We have removed all names and personal information in order to protect privacy. This professional kindly spent a bit of their time to complete one of our job profile surveys so that prospective job seekers like you could read their insights. Please excuse any punctuation or grammatical errors in this profile.
At a Glance
Current Job
Basic data on your current job
| Job Title | Patient Care Technician II |
|---|---|
| Salary | $35,577 |
| Other Compensation | None Set |
| Hours/Week | |
| Company Size | (not answered) |
| Location | Aurora, CO |
| Years Experience | 4 years |
Career Ratings
Opinions on your CAREER overall (i.e. not just your current job)
| Years in Career | 0 |
|---|---|
| Education | (not answered) |
| Income Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Interest Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Work-Life Rating | 0 / 10 |
| Fulfilment Rating | 0 / 10 |
Current job Q&A
Describe the type of organization you work for.
Worldwide company; thousands of employees; Dialysis is the process where we clean the blood of patients who’s kidneys do not work properly.
Describe your job role and responsibilities.
Cannulate patient’s artery & vein. Set up machiene and Initiate treatment. Take Patient’s vital signs frequently. Monitor patient. Communicate with the nurses and doctors regarding a patients treatment needs and outcomes. Draw blood for testing. Clean & Check Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) machienes. extra tasks: Do monthly inventory counts and send to Accounting; Drive & Deliver Apheresis machienes to different hospitals for use.
Please list an additional benefits (beyond compensation) that you receive.
Aetna Premium Health insurance, 2 weeks vacation, 401K.
Do you feel you are under/over or well/fairly compensated at your current position?
Because of the extra time consuming tasks I do, I feel slightly under compensated at my current position…but, w/o those I’d feel well compensated.
Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Please explain.
Yes I work with nurses, other techs, patients and sometimes their families. I like working with the other people in my field. Sometimes the patients are difficult to work with but I’ve learned to deal with it. I like my job.
Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes
Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes
Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it.
Please rate each of the following aspects of your current job on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest/best):
Income: 2
Benefits: 5
Hours: 3
Co-Workers: 1
Supervisors: 7
Job Title: 8
Level of Responsibility: 6
The Actual Work: 4
A day in the life of…
Please describe a typical workday for you in your current job:
| 5am to 6am | |
| 6am to 7am | |
| 7am to 8am | Start work at 6AM. Turn on the machienes, string and hook up the dialyzer to the machiene. Check the residual chlorine and hardness of the water coming from the R.O. machiene. Verify doctor’s orders on the acid bath the patient will run his treatment on. Call for or Go get the patient from hospital room, weigh pt.and check vital signs and respiratory sounds, Cannulate the patient’s fistula/graph (artery/vein), Program machiene to run pt. at correct time and Ultrafiltration (fluid removal rate). |
| 8am to 9am | Prepared for next treatments and assessing what the rest of the day will be like. Checking vital signs every 15 minutes and recording them on the flow-sheet. Started treatment with another patient (see box 1). Took approx. 6 phone calls…3 from my Clinical manager, a couple from the Doctor regarding patients, staffing, and schedules etc. Washed hands frequently between patients and charting. |
| 9am to 10am | Preparing to take the 1st patient off his treatment. Put on PPE (personal protective equipment…gloves, face shield, lab coats, face mask and eye protection. Start “rinsing” the patient’s blood back w/ Saline. Turn off the UF pump. Clamp the blood lines and remove the needles and bandaging up patient (waiting for bleeding to stop) after taking final blood pressure and making sure patient was stable. Weigh the patient one final time and documenting record. Returned patient to his room. |
| 10am to 11am | Wash hands and re-PPE. Take 2nd patient’s final vitals and document findings on his chart. Start rinsing his blood back (see previous box). When bleeding stopped–after about 10 minutes of holding his sites– bandaged him up and weighed him. Documented weight for chart. Wheeled him back to his room. |
| 11am to 12pm | Was called by clinical manager and asked to go get the truck to deliver an Apheresis machiene and supply cart to another hospital. Left…drove to pickup the box truck…loaded the machiene and cart and drove to the other hospital. Drove up to the ER and unloaded the machienes…left them there while I parked the truck in an out of the way spot. |
| 12pm to 1pm | Still taking machienes to patient’s room. Have to make 2 trips to get the cart seperately due to the size and weight of these machienes. After checked with floor nurse re: what room the patient was in, left machiene and cart in front of the room for the next Apheresis nurse to use for the pt.’s treatment. Stopped at the next restroom to take a break and wash my hands. |
| 1pm to 2pm | Drove truck back to pickup location. |
| 2pm to 3pm | Had a short discussion about my plans for tomorrow with my manager and left at about 2:40PM. Stopped at Wendy’s on the way home to grab some lunch and…. |
| 3pm to 4pm | Arrived home about 3:30PM…after I stopped at the post office to drop off some outgoing mail.Removed my shoes at the door…Let the dogs in and played with them for a few minutes. Took a shower and changed into some different clothing. |
| 4pm to 5pm | ~4:15 started preparing dinner for my family. |
| 5pm to 6pm | Husband got home from work at 6pm while I’m still preparing dinner. Called my mom….talked to her for a little while. |
| 6pm to 7pm | 6:30pm served dinner. Ate dinner. Talked to hubby about his work, my work, etc. |
| 7pm to 8pm | Took a short walk around the block with dogs. Entered house, let dogs out to go “potty”. Watch TV for about 1/2 hour. |
| 8pm to 9pm | Went to bed about 8:30PM to get some sleep before have to get up again tomorrow. |
| 9pm to 10pm | Sleeping. |
| 10pm to 11pm | Sleeping. |
| 11pm to 12am | Sleeping. Wake at 4:30AM. Brush teeth, get dressed, have breakfast, go to work (leave house by 5:15AM. |
Table of Contents
How you got your job
How did you get your current job?
I grew up with my mother who was a Dialysis Registered Nurse for my whole life. When I was looking for a good paying job while I was still in college, I went to the Dialysis clinic.
What was the application process?
Submitted resume & filled out an application. They did a background check and drug screening on me and had an interview.
Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail?
Yes. Had a phone interview, then met with the Clinical Manager, filled out information for a background check and they soaked a sponge with my saliva to use for a drug test.
If you can remember, what questions were you asked during the interview?
Something to do with how I would take care of patients in certain situations.
Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain.
Yes. Was able to go through common cenarios in class before experiencing it on the treatment floor.
Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
Yes. 3 months of precepting (one on one training) and 10 weeks (1-2 days/week) of classroom material…learning anatomy, history of dialysis, how to work the machiene, etc.
Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain.
Not really. Didn’t do well in Science classes due to the monotony and bland, unrelatable material (the way it was presented)in school.
If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare for your job?
Did not have an internship from school.
If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
Go to one of our competing companies to get trained, work there at least a year and then apply with us.
What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours?
The skill of being able to be around/see/ and work with blood. Must be current with licenses and BLS CPR certified. Must like to help people and have excellent communication skills. Must also be quick to respond to any emergencies and be mindfull at all times. (Pay attention to subtle things that the patient may not be able to tell you is wrong.)
Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
Yes.
What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
Get training from a chronic clinic and give yourself about a year to get comfortable with the position…while you’re there, study up on kidneys and physiology and keep current with the new advances in medicine.
Long-term career plans
Is your current employment part of your overall career plan? Why or why not?
Yes. I’m going on to be a nurse….they’ll pay for it if I commit to work there for a time after my education.
What are your current career goals?
To become a Registered Nurse in this field but transition into homecare for elderly individuals.
Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
Prior work history
Please list your most recent jobs prior to this current job:
| Title | Length | Salary | Description | |
| Prior Job 1 | Patient Care Tech II | 4 years | 35577 | Treating patients in the hospital who have “End Stage Renal Disease” (kidneys don’t work) by cannulating them and hooking their blood lines up to filter through a false kidney (called a dialyzer)…to clean their blood and remove excess fluid off their bodies. (a healthy person’s kidneys do this normally to keep toxins and fluid from building up inside us) |
| Prior Job 2 | Internal Site Supervisor | 3 years | 32000 | Interviewed prospective employees, filled out new hire paperwork, called on referrences and verified backgrounds when neccesary, initial training, counselled employees when having problems, scheduled employees, supervised workers on-site at many of the company’s on-site accounts. |
Educational background
Please list your educational background:
High School GPA:
| GPA | School | Degree | |
| College (Undergraduate) or Technical/Vocational |
2.4 | Univ. of Northern Colorado | Psychology- almost a BA |
| Graduate or Professional (Masters or Doctorate) |
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