r/cna

I'm just curious, I've come across this community a few time when looking though Reddit and stuff for advice. I was just wondering what a CNA is and what y'all kinda do? Is it work for care homes/old folks homes and is CNA an American term or general term used around the world?

I have a bachelor's in information systems and 8 years of IT experience. Last April I lost my job and was struggling to find a new one. I got a few interviews but no offers. Fearing I'd never be able to re-enter the industry as my resume gap grew longer, I signed up for CNA school so I could at least feed myself after unemployment ran out. My teacher was wonderful and I did well on classwork, but spending time in clinicals made me realize I wasn't cut out for it. I stuck it out, got my license, and went to work for an LTC. I enjoyed working with most residents, but I cried every day and was paralyzed with anxiety before doing pretty much anything involving patient care. The only thing I actually liked about it was the potential flexibility in shifts. I applied for nursing school and got one of the highest TEAS scores of all the applicants, but deep down I knew it wasn't for me. I am autistic with poor motor skills and I dreaded the idea that I would be responsible for other people's lives, with mistakes being scrutinized and having the potential to destroy my career or even land me in legal trouble.

Fortunately, after a year out of the tech market, I applied on a whim to an IT job for a healthcare system. I wasn't hopeful since I'd been disappointed so many times before, but I got an interview. I didn't get that job, either. But then the hiring manager reached out saying I had been the runner-up and they had another position they'd offer me without having to interview again. 10:30am - 7pm M-F, 160 hours of PTO a year, and fully remote. I believe working as a CNA helped me because it prevented me from having a very long unemployment gap and they liked that I understood the struggles someone in patient care has with technology.

I hated being a CNA but I do think it made me more well-rounded, resilient, and grateful for what I have.

I’m a female CNA. Today, we were very short staffed so everybody had 17 patients on pm shift. Normally we have 8-9 so it’s a very big difference and most of the patients here are total care and have behavioral issues that warrant lots of individual attention. I was going room to room changing people last round answering call lights as fast as I could like a chicken with its head cut off. The male charge nurse aggressively walked up to me demanding that I check on a patient that’s screaming “help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Side note- this is a behavioral issue that commonly occurs on the evening shift as this patient has dementia. I explained to the nurse that I had literally 5 minutes prior changed the patient, gave snacks and water and lowered the bed to the ground so that he wouldn’t be at risk to fall. I explained all that and he still said “well I’ve been a nurse for ten years and you are just standing around doing nothing.” That’s bs because I was literally sweating my butt off changing people. And he also said “I missed my lunch to cover the floor because you didn’t tell me that you were back.” I told him well I was relieving my partner CNA and that I don’t relieve nurses because there’s another nurse on duty with him that is also on the floor as well as other CNA’s. It was just incredibly rude and demeaning. The nurse proceeded with saying “I don’t like that you walked away from me and sighed earlier.” First of all, I could’ve sighed from anything and I did walk away because I was defusing the situation like we’ve always learned. The worst part about this is that the patients heard because it was in the hallway and another patient told me she heard and she said he was nasty and rude.

I just landed my first CNA job at a SNF and have been lurking on this subreddit to figure out what the day-to-day will look like. From what I’ve seen, I don’t really understand how timing and tasks work. Like how do you know what to do? When you are assigned residents, how do you know what each one needs and when they need it? I know a lot of this confusion will be sorted out when I do my orientation, but I’d like to get a better idea of if I can handle this beforehand. I’m a very task-oriented person and prefer things to be done in a certain order, so I worry that I’ll start the job and just not know what to do.

Hopefully some of this made sense lol. If I could just hear what someone does when they clock in to the time they clock out, that would help ease my worries.

Long story short, 400ml of yellow spilled on my shoe because I’m dumb and knocked over the urinal while draining a cath. Any tips on getting it out?

Mid-20's male here. Recently got offered a Nursing Assistant 1 position at Orlando Health in a Med-Surge unit and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity. Accepted it with no hesitation since I've been applying for about a month to different NA 1 positions with constant rejections till the offer came through. Currently wrapping up onboarding and starting next month.

Given my background of no healthcare experience but plenty of customer service experience from retail & real estate, along with some gig work involving trash for a few months, I would like to say I'm capable of working with people and doing dirty work whenever needed.

From what I've seen, healthcare can make or break a person, and yet I still feel like I can be an effective Nurse in the years to come once I start college again and graduate with a BSN (Positive thinking) As a Nursing Assistant/Tech, what should I expect and how can I best prepare for the position apart from what I've seen online?

Any insight is appreciated, thank you.

So today in class we were going over the following skills: gloving, clearing a patients linens when they vomited, oral care on a conscious patient and unconscious patient, and shaving a resident. Everything was going fine with my first peer as we did the first two skills. Then the problem began when we switched peers. I had a female peer who seemed to have an entitled chip on her shoulder today because it was her birthday. We get through the oral care skill and tested on it and then I go to set up for practicing and peer reviewing the shaving skill and my peer just abandons me. There's a half hour in the class left and I have everything set up and she's no where to be found. We get to the last few minutes of class and it's time to clean up and she finally shows her face. I told our RN instructor about it but as far as I know nothing was done. We were doing 4 skills today as we don't have class Monday with the holiday coming up.

AITA for this or did I do the right thing? I didn't even get help cleaning our station. I had to reposition our manaquine, fix their bed, return all our supplies, and remake the bed and basically reset everything with no help from my peer.

For context I’m not anything, I’m going a CCMA course online currently and have been wanting to get into the medical field. My husband has acute pancreatitis and gall stones were in the ED and while he was getting an MRI I had my work out. A nurse came by and just asked her about the order of draw and we got to talking. She told me I should apply at the hospital for nurse aide they’ll train me for everything don’t need schooling or nothing. I currently work at a daycare where my children go, and I want to do something else so bad, I love childcare but I’ve grown out of it. Anyways she even told her bosses while I was there and they said to apply asap. So I did put one in but it was for the med/surg floor which my husband is now on since he needs his gallbladder out. Anyone else a nurse aide in a hospital? What’s it like? Is it easy to catch on? I’m very much a hands on learner so this online course has been kicking my butt because I can’t do anything in person.

I work at a hospital, and during my 12.5 hour shift I was assigned a 4:1 (1:1 but for 4 people) all of them fall risk including 2 people that had fallen this week..
towards the end of the day two of the fell asleep so I focused on the 2 people that had fallen recently and they told me I made the right choice blah blah blah.
Around 6:30pm both patients went crazy, sundown to the max lol, one of them had visitors, both patients were trying to get up, so I called the charge nurse to help 3 times since they was nobody else available right away, she told me she was super busy (she was just sitting there) and I needed to figure it out, first red flag, I ended up calling another CNA because at this point one patient is up and trying to walk away and the other is almost all the way out of the bed and their muscles do not work at all…
At this point there’s 2 of us in the room, however with all the commotion 2 other CNA’s come in on their own accord.
The charge nurse barges in and started yelling at me while there is VISITORS in the room, she said “You cannot have this many people here while there is visitors, this is super unprofessional and you are putting on a show, let the visitor deal with the person they are visiting and focus on the other patient, this is ridiculous and you can never have this many people here unless absolutely necessary, blah blah blah”
Not even 2 seconds later, she takes over and calls 2 nurses to come help because ONE patient (one of the 2 that was getting up) is giving her trouble… She did exactly what I did, except she called more people, after she has just yelled at me in front of visitors for the same reason…

I am debating speaking to her or just going straight to the boss because this charge nurse is known for treating everybody like shit under her shoe ☹️

So I'm new to being a CNA like I just got my license last month and I was just fired today. They said one of my shifts I didn't take care of any of my residents (which isn't true at all I always take care of them to the best of my skill I am still learning and stuff) and that all the info I was given and idk what I should do no for the moment my license still says it active but i fear I'm gonna lose it or something. Can anyone help me or tell me what steps I should take next. I'm really scared cause CNA was only supposed to be a starting place before I go to school for LPN.

For those of you like myself who use this app are you finding consistent work, like daily? It has really dried up where I am to the point where there is only 1 facility on there for May 22-31st and one day shift offering for next week from a facility that is 150 miles away. Before anyone suggests the other apps they don’t have work in my area at all.

After I get my cna license, I know I can do med tech after six months. I am limited in how far I can go, because I don’t want to go for a college degree.

College math and I would not get along. I stopped understanding math after pre algebra. I can multiply and divide large numbers in my head , but once there are more symbols and letters than numbers, my brain is out.

What is the highest you can go without an associate or bachelor degree ?

First day on the floor at Nursing and Rehabilitation place in NYC. It’s so much better than my old job in assisted living. No one is overworked. The building has like 7 floors. My floor is just 17 rooms between four CNAs. This is so much better than being split between 3 CNAs doing helping dozens on one floor. I’m not treated like a leper for being male. This floor is men only. I’m not the only male cna in the whole building unlike my old job. In fact I work with one in my unit and there’s plenty more down stairs too. Lots of male nurses and med techs. Thank God I’m not the only man in the whole building anymore.

I feel relieved. It’s hard work but it’s reasonable hard work and I don’t have people breathing down my neck. I was reported to my boss at my old job for making some co-workers “uncomfortable” and I didn’t do shit. It’s like there was a target on my back for being male. On this floor the male to female ratio is more balanced towards male staff.

More importantly they hold far better standards of professionalism. At my old Assisted Living job they would sometimes have us use a hoyer lift by ourselves even though it required two people minimum. Here, they say it requires two. There’s teamwork. I was struggling doing the beds in a presentable manner and the head cna stood there and had me redo it repeatedly until I got it. THOSE are standards and they actually give a shit making sure I know how’s it’s done from day one. No people forcing me to transfer a 6ft tall late stage Parkinson’s resident from chair to bed all by myself and expecting me to know how to treat him. Good Lord. There’s one resident who is combative and violent and shouts but we have someone on the floor that watches him and keeps him in check plus he’s mostly all bark and mostly responded to things he just doesn’t want. Either way, it’s so much better. Like vastly.

Plus I get fed a free lunch on the dot. What??? And it’s actually nutritious. Rice, chicken with sauce, vegetables, soup. For someone lacking money and was homeless just a few days ago this is amazing. I don’t have to buy lunch and since I do OMAD this is the only thing I’m eating all day

People acted like nursing homes are worse than assisted living. I know not every nursing home is the same but I think they’re crazy due to my experience. Old job put me, a fresh newly licensed cna with no experience, in memory care. Like??

I spent way too long trying to figure this out before I booked so putting it here for anyone in the same spot.

How long does CPR certification take depends entirely on which format you do. Fully in person is typically a two to three hour class covering all the content and skills in one sitting. The hybrid format splits it up, you do the heartcode online module at home which runs around an hour to an hour and a half depending on how fast you move through it, then you come in for the in person skills check which is the part that cannot be skipped. When I went through safety training seminars the skills check ran about 35 minutes start to finish, so the total time investment for the hybrid format was under two hours spread across two sessions.

For CNA work the AHA BLS cert is what most employers and state licensing processes recognise. Worth confirming with your employer before you book anything but in most cases that is what they mean when they say CPR certification required.

The card is valid for two years from the date you complete the class.

I didn't know where else to post this but I think there are some Activities people lurking on here. I got my CNA certification not too long ago and quickly found out it isn't for me. I have an interview for an activity assistant position tomorrow and I was wondering what kinda questions they would ask?

this happened not too long ago, I freakin farted in front of a doctor and a patient and im soooooooo embarrassed. I didn't even expect the fart too, like it just escaped out of nowhere, I wasn't gassy or anything, I didn't eat anything weird. I was so embarrassed i turned to red and i was like planning to faint just to cover it up, but i sucked it up and continued with the shift. I just took a step and my butt let out a FART. it was so stinky too omgg freeaaaaaaak my career is over

Because how are you constantly calling in, or showing up ridiculously late, or being scheduled for a shift but set to come in 1-4 hours late, and it's always magically fine? 🤨

It's also dayshift 99% of the time (at least at my facility). Like, I'd feel more pity for your workload if you all showed up to your job to actually do it. Only people I feel bad for are the ones stuck doing extra work because people just have no work ethic or sense of responsibility whatsoever.

edit: To whoever is downvoting this post, I'm gonna assume what I've typed applies to you, and I hope you know your coworkers are probably tired of your nonsense. 😌