r/cna

I completely understand, not everyone thinks like this, most people want to push through and live the best life they can until they perish of old age, and certain people need help with even the basics of living and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s what I and others are there for, and a lot of CNAs like me put up with the literally shitty job because if we won’t do it who will

But it’s also made me very jaded and desensitised to death, and what I fear a hell of a lot more than death is becoming bedridden and not being able to walk more than 2 feet without assistance or even be able to properly care for my own hygiene

Anyone else?

I just had the worst 12 hour shift of my entire career. I am a home health CNA and I accepted this assignment of a paralyzed man. I have worked with partial paralyzed people but not quadriplegic and that’s what he was. Also usually they tell us in the bio if a client is easily irritated or confused but this time they didn’t put it in. I walked in there blind.

I made so many mistakes. The first one was when repositioning him. In my school we were taught to use pillows but he used wedges. It was hell. He was fussing at me and questioned my career. I really wished I would’ve known he was mean because I don’t work well with intense pressure and rude people. Him and his wife were yelling at me to pull him back and my dumbass pulled him forward🤦🏾‍♀️. I was overthinking like hell.

Whenever he talks he mumbles and it doesn’t make it better when his TV volume is up to 72. He asked me “what are we paying you for?” When I didn’t immediately remember what he ate 6 hours ago. Mind you I don’t know exactly what he had because his daughter brought him something from Starbucks. So I said starbucks and he was like “oh that’s right.” Also it’s not required to note meals in his chart so it wasn’t that important. Omg. I fucking suck ass at this.

I mean he was just agitated towards me. I almost cried and walked out. I felt so useless and uncomfortable that I didn’t even eat when they offered me food. Like I never had a client who was nasty even when I was trying my best. All of my clients like me. I know I sound like a baby but this shit hurt.

I don’t think the direct patient care is for me. Like I literally applied to Chipotle and have an interview tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s just whenever someone is being mean in intense situations I overthink. My mind goes blank. That’s what was happening the whole shift. I hesitated on everything which made him even more angry. I didn’t trust myself for 12 hours straight. Overwhelmed all day.

I’m just gonna stick with biology and go into research. At least my microbes won’t be upset at me. I hope I get this cashier job.

I work in home health. Have my first hospice client and my overall impression is that "dying in the comfort of your own home" is nice in theory but awful in practice, even with things like a hospital bed. His house is old, and very much not set up for someone who is both bedridden and having bowel movements 2-3x a day due to a sensitive stomach and short bowel. A lot of mopping up is involved and as soon as his tiny, stuffy bedroom is aired out we have to change him again. His adult children do their best but have no experience with this, obviously. I can't help but think this is the least comfortable and most invasive way for him to die, and he would be in much better hands in hospice with all the best assistive tech and people whose specialty is caring for the dying.

Catch me at 85 checking into the hospice for unlimited baths and drugs /s

First things first, I am a very helpful CNA I swear.
I’m up doing vitals, restocking rooms, answering call lights etc all shift. I don’t just sit around. I have this nurse though, who has been asking me (specifically and only me, even when my trainer is there) to do things for him.
Things like “can you get room 8 water” or “can you put room 7’s bed down” all night. He even had me stop my prep to clean poop off my patient to take a parameter vital for a medication he needed to give (he was in the room!!)

I need some advice on how to respond to these requests, because it’s clear to me that I shouldn’t just be putting my head down and doing them. I don’t want to be too aggressive about it either.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: nurses at my hospital are not allowed to have anyone other than themselves or another nurse do parameter vitals, that’s one issue. Two is he’s targeting me specifically as a younger lady to do his random tasks (like lowering a bed? Bro that’s easy!)
It’s not that I don’t want to support my nurses. I absolutely do, there is an issue however with being an ass to your CNA & also ditching your own task on your assistants.

I’m a hospital CNA and I’m honestly still annoyed about what happened at work today.

For context, I had an issue with this same RN yesterday because she didn’t communicate a new admission’s care needs to me. She told me the provider hadn’t put orders in yet and that she would update me when they did. She never followed up, and then toward the end of the shift started questioning me about why the patient hadn’t gotten a CHG bath and why his 4 PM Q4 vitals weren’t done.

I told her I had never been informed that either of those things were needed and that if she had communicated them to me, I would’ve done them. She told me I was “remembering it differently,” and afterward I could see her talking about me with another nurse at the nurses station.
Fast-forward to today, and I’m working with her again.
From the beginning of the shift, she seemed noticeably short with me.

Around 8 AM, she asked me to clean up a patient who had spilled his urinal. It wasn’t just a quick cleanup — he needed a total bed change and he’s a two-person assist. I told her I needed help because I wasn’t comfortable doing it alone. She told me I should be able to do it myself because she was busy, but said she’d come find me when she was finished with what she was doing.

She never came back.

Eventually, I had to ask the charge nurse to help me.
Then later, she was literally inside another patient’s room passing medications and had the physical therapist leave the room, come find me, and tell me that the RN wanted me to empty the patient’s urinal.

I assumed it had probably already been emptied because the RN was literally in the room providing care, but she eventually came to find me herself and asked me to do it.
I said, “Oh, sorry, I saw you were working with him, so I thought you had done it.”

She told me she was super busy and hadn’t gotten a break yet, so she needed me to do it.
Whatever. Emptying urinals is obviously part of my job. I went in and did it.

But the weird part was that when I walked into the room, she was STILL in there actively working with the patient. So I basically walked into the room, emptied the urinal sitting next to her, and walked back out.
At that point, I was starting to feel like some of this might have been because I had spoken up for myself the day before.

Then around 10 AM is when everything blew up.
Earlier that morning, I had promised another patient that I would give her a shower around 10 and help detangle her hair before her visitors arrived. Around 10:15, the RN asked me to help her put a sling under another patient because he needed to go to CT. I asked if it was urgent. She said yes, and I said okay.
At basically the same time, the daughter of the patient I had promised the shower to came up and told me her mom was ready.

So I asked another CNA if he would be willing to help the RN with the sling so I could take care of the shower I had already scheduled.He said yes.
Problem solved, right? Apparently not.

The RN came up to me and, very aggressively, asked, “Are you not going to help me?”
I explained that I had already committed to another patient and that another CNA was willing to help her instead.

She rolled her eyes and walked away.
A little later, while I was gathering supplies for the shower and bed change, she came up to me AGAIN and said something like, “So you’re giving a CHG bath instead of helping me?”

I told her no, I wasn’t doing a CHG bath. I had promised this patient a shower before her visitors arrived, I was also doing her hair and changing the bed, and it was probably going to take me close to an hour. I reminded her that another CNA was willing to help her.
She scoffed at me.

At that point, I asked, “Are you okay? You seem kind of…” because she very obviously seemed irritated with me.
And then she went off.
I don’t remember every word exactly, so I don’t want to pretend I do, but she basically said I hadn’t been helping her, she had asked me to do multiple things, and after I had been “disrespectful” to her yesterday, she was “over it.”
I told her yesterday’s situation was unfortunate, but I had simply been trying to communicate that I never received report on that patient and wasn’t trying to disrespect her.
She continued arguing with me, loudly.

At that point, I told her, “I’m not going to engage in this conversation. You’re being very disrespectful right now.”
She said something like, “Yeah, well, we’ll talk about it later in private,” and stormed off.
And here’s the part that REALLY bothers me.
This happened at the nurses station/hallway in front of basically everybody.

There were multiple nurses and CNAs standing there who witnessed it. One CNA who was doing a 1:1 in a room down the hall later told me she could hear the argument FROM THE PATIENT’S ROOM.

Even worse, we were directly outside the room of the patient I was supposed to be showering. Her door was open.

So the patient AND HER DAUGHTER witnessed/heard this nurse arguing with me about my job performance and accusing me of being disrespectful.
I find that unbelievably inappropriate.

If she genuinely had an issue with my performance, why not pull me aside privately? Why are we having a loud argument about an interpersonal issue at the nurses station where patients, family members, and the entire unit can hear it?

Afterward, I spoke with the charge nurse at length about the situation. We had a great conversation, and the charge nurse said she would try to talk to the RN and see what was going on.

Shortly after that, I saw the RN storm to the nurses station and say that she “wasn’t doing this.” She then left, called staffing, had herself marked sick, and did not give report to the RNs she had handed her patients off to.

The charge nurse later told me that when she tried to talk to the RN, the RN was very upset and wasn’t willing to engage in a conversation. She also apparently didn’t have nice things to say about me or the other CNAs in general. The charge nurse said she would escalate the situation to management.

I also found out that the RN texted our manager while the manager was off that day. I was advised to file an incident report, which I did.

I have a client who is of sound mind. He likes me a lot and I truly enjoy taking care of him. I work morning shift. He has started to refuse care on nights because he says I’m coming to take care of him in the morning. He is soaked every morning. Would it be appropriate to explain to him that I can’t be the only one taking care of him?

I work night shifts in a care facility, where I’m the only one. We have an overweight resident with paper thin skin, who refuses to assist in turning herself when we change her; resulting in the workers having to use their full body strength to turn her. Whenever I touch her, she always says “ouch” or “it hurts”. I was told that day shift uses three workers to change her, but since there is only one worker at night, it’s just one person. Her bed is also low, and cannot raise, which is useful for everyone because all of the employees are under 5’8. I’m 6’4, so I have to change her while I’m on my knees. This morning, while changing her, I was switching her under pad because she had a blowout. While trying to turn her over to take the under pad out, she got a skin tear on her arm. I cleaned it, bandaged it, took a picture of it, and charted it. I texted admin about it and was told that I have to be careful because there’s no way a bed bound resident should ever get a skin tear. Mind you, she has skin tears all over her body. Has anyone ever gone through this?

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long post, but I don't know who to ask. I’m a Nurse Aide I in NC. I'm working for a home health agency, and I really need some advice from fellow CNAs to make sure I’m protecting my certification.

Here is what happened:
My current client’s care plan is only for basic personal care, and I was hired as a PCA, nothing more. When I got to the home, I saw he uses an external catheter system (a condom cath alternative). This device was not listed on his care plan, so I reported it to the office so it could be added. This was the beginning of a chain of contradictory phone calls.

First call: I was told an external catheter is a clinical medical device, so only a CNA could change or apply them, and he wasn’t a CNA client. I was told I shouldn't be doing it, and I won’t be paid the extra money for CNA work. This prompted me to look it up.

Second call: They backtracked and claimed his external catheter isn't a medical device. They said it’s just a personal care item, and the task is no different than normal toileting. They said that any PCA can do it. I brought up NCDHHS rules I’d found, showing that external catheters fall under Level III care, which requires a CNA registry listing and an RN delegation plan.

Today's call: A higher-up called me and said an RN can delegate to CNAs. I told him I understood, but this isn't a CNA client, and I'm not being paid CNA wages. He then said that even if I pretended I wasn't on the registry (I’m not pretending I’m not a CNA; it’s just not the role I have for this specific client). I told them if they were relying so much on me being on the registry to do CNA tasks then I wanted to be paid accordingly. He said no but that an RN can delegate higher level tasks to a basic PCA, even if it's out of my job description and not on the clients care plan. I was told they could send an RN out to train me to do it on this PCA shift. (I don’t work with a nurse, nor have I ever met her).

I am just worried about risking my Nurse Aide I registration by doing unassigned medical care on a shift that isn't classified or paid as a CNA. Am I wrong? What should I do?  

My Mom lives in a long term care set up, and will most likely be there for several years. The CNAs there work so insanely hard to keep everyone happy and doing well. How do Mom and I let them know they're appreciated?

What about when Christmas rolls around? Is a gift basket with snacks, liquid IV, pens, etc tacky? What would you actually want?

We will 100% write a heartfelt card. What should go with it?

I am not a CNA, but was asked by my Mom's CNA to remove her pubic hair. They're not allowed to do it at her home, but the CNA feels it would be cleaner if I removed it.

But... How? Are there certain shavers that are better for this? I'll ask mom's consent first of course, but if she says yes... How does it work? Do you have any tips as a group of people who have likely had to do this before?

TIA

I started working at this nursing home and it’s so run down and everything’s so out of order. There’s roaches everywhere. The break room looks disgusting. The way they have things set up don’t make any sense and CNAs are hiding linen carts and stealing them from one another. There’s no designated closet or anything for the linen or dirty linen like my old job.
I work 2pm-10pm and so far it’s 3pm and I feel like I’m going insane not knowing what to do. My full stocked linen cart got “stolen”. No clue where it’s at and all my residents I’m assigned to seem fine but nobody else is in the hallway and I’m just unsure what to do and feel like I have to hide.
It’s super anxiety inducing.
I miss my old job with all my amazing residents :(
Anyone have any tips or anything?
I honestly want to quit but I know I need the income for my new apartment.
I think I’m going to start applying other places.

title. just need to rant. this assisted living assigns every CNA with 15-18 residents each. one person called out so it doubled my assignment. couldn’t split because every other CNA was brand new to evening shift and couldn’t even complete their assignment properly. i had to stop what i was doing and help them constantly.

PLUS i had to train this sweet girl whose second day it is because her trainer bailed.

36 people and basically no help. drowned the entire night. i hate this job and this field so much. management had the audacity to beg me to come in tomorrow at 6am and work a double. 14 hours of straight work after this is what im dealing with? fuck no.

anyways thanks for reading.

I take my test in less than two weeks and I really just wanna do as many practice test as I can. I feel like that helps me better than traditional studying like I still plan on reading through the material but I find that repetition of questions helps me quite a bit more.

We have one at my job. A girl on day shift. It makes me feel a lot better knowing it isn’t just me she does it to. There’s this 1 girl that I’m not joking will find any tiny thing to complain about. Sometimes she won’t even say it to you she’ll complain to other people, but night shift weekends we majority get along so we stick up for each other. Now tell me if I’m wrong but these are things with me she’s specifically complained about. Mind you we’re constantly short on nights so we regularly have 1:16 or 1:20 patients which day shift never has to go through.

- I have a pretty much independent person a shower but accidentally forgot the towels in the bathroom. 1 time thing not a pattern.

- I had a hall with a person that was a 1:1 but I had no 1:1. She’s coming in to be the day shift 1:1. She walks in, mid complete bed change with the CNA taking the hall, to complain that his trash isn’t taken out. I’m very good about my trash and this person doesn’t get changed so again, short staffed and honest mistake. Like bro you have 1 patient please be fr like idk

- Someone that doesn’t get changed, urinal not being dumped. Again I might be wrong but sometimes you’re so focused on changing everybody you might forget the 1 person that doesn’t get changed but uses a urinal. Btw it would never be outrageous or close to overflowing or anything cus I periodically dump them through the night

- She did twice try saying I wasn’t cleaning this guys colostomy right which idk what that was ab cus the patient, nurse, other CNA’s nobody else ever had that complaint.

Mind you nobody else complains ab my work ethic. I get complimented a lot and I get along with all the other day shift people. And a lot of night shift people get excited when they realize it’s me they’re working with etc same with nurses (I go by a nickname but get scheduled as my full name)

Well apparently she does this to everyone on night shift. Cus my coworker she did it to her too over something petty I can’t remember. The girl switched her days so I haven’t seen her in months. I didn’t even see she was scheduled today. Bro, I walk up to the nurses station at 6:10 and see her sitting there and I’m like Lord 😩 please don’t let her be taking my run. Well ofc she was. And even tho I did everything to the best of my ability I’m just so filled with anxiety she’s gonna find something and complain again. After I gave report my coworker said “You didn’t have to do that, I just watched her and she sat at the computer and went through everything you charted” Idk. Thankfully I’m on a different unit tonight so I won’t be relieving her. But still.

Anyways yeah that’s today’s rant lol