r/cna

Do you guys take advice from your seasoned CNAs in aspects that their job functions require them to do day in and day out multiple times a day? Transfers, hygiene, feeding, etc?

I’ve found over the years that book smarts only take you so far in a skill set wether that be a “lower” importance one. And I’ve met a couple RNs who find this out the hard way.

So now I have my paperwork for my certified medication aide license paid for and given to DHHS and waiting on them to process it for my license number. Because the state (I'm in Nebraska) allows me to work for up to 60 days while it processes I've started applying for jobs. I just got an email chain for a place I know that is short staffed and was hiring for a PRN CMA and it ended with them saying because they are an LTC they require their CMA to have their CNA. But I told them I'm going for my CNA Monday at my local community college. But how I'm sitting here saying what does med aide have to do with not having my CNA. Like seriously I did all the work, I got a 4.00 gpa for my class, passed the state exam with an 85 (you only needed a 72 to pass), never failed a single skills test or lab, passed my competency test in one try.. and your telling that's still not enough?!?!?!

Title, I'm turning the big 25 this year and currently work at a warehouse, it's cool, management is nice and the work is fairly easy.

But sometimes I feel like I'm wasting my time here, no disrespect of course, all labor is valuable, but I want to use my time helping others vs just on the weekends volunteering.

What does it take mentally and physically to be a CNA? I don't mind long hours and physical work, I do overtime often here, along with pulling 20ft copper and plastic pipe in the sun for plumbers.

Mentally ....can be an issue, as I have adhd and tend to be forgetful, and have issues hearing what people say, in the sense that I can hear exactly what was said, but didn't process it. I am currently not on medication and will jump on it soon.

How is it day to day? Is it stable? Pay I don't care much for, I'm a simple dude and as long as my needs are met plus a little extra for savings, I'm happy.

How is it when it comes to age? Warehouse jobs typically behind the scenes will absolutely not hire someone who's 30+ is ageism a issue for CNA's?

I live in LA county if that changes things.

Edit- Many are automatically saying no, which is cool, but for someone like me what is a good career path then?

Given that’s what I have to do, and that working as a CNA is pretty rough pay for a pretty rough job, I couldn’t imagine doing it without some further goal in mind.

In my area you can work at a factory that pays a few dollars more and is easier and has no degree requirements at all. What are your thoughts?

I have a resident who is a 1:1 and her son comes in every night. He does not give her any care whatsoever. We'll be super busy and instead of respectfully approaching one of us to ask for help he'll come into the hallway and yell, demanding someone come in to change her or take her to the bathroom. He's clearly frustrated with her but its like... how tf do you think we feel sitting with her for over 12 hours PLUS still needing to take a group and get that done?

It floored me when I heard this guy yell "HEY MAN CAN SOMEONE TAKE HER TO THE BATHROOM LIKE RIGHT NOW?" Sir... what's preventing you from taking her yourself? It's right next to you and she can stand to get on the toilet by herself, just guide her to the bathroom?? I dont understand, if you're not going to help with her care and you're visibly frustrated with her to the point you're on the edge of giving up why are you even here? Im gonna be blunt here but you're just getting in the way at this point.

I am around someone daily who is high risk and I am concerned that when I start my new job in an assisted living facility that I might bring something home and harm this person?

Hi everyone! I started my CNA course at the beginning of last month and we'll be hopefully doing our clinicals in the third week of June or so. However, we are super behind in even trying out our skills and having them signed off on by instructors and we still haven't done our BLS training either. Every instructor is really hands off and any time I try to get in touch with them about things, I get no reply. I've been doing all the work and practicing but it feels like at this rate, I'm not going to pass any of our tests or even get to properly practice for the Skills exam. We've checked off on 6/23 of the skills we need and there are only 4 weeks left of class hours.

I can't decide if I should finish out the class (it's nights and I work during the day), or if I should just start job hunting and drop it. It's really discouraging how behind we are and how little the school seems to care about us being good at our job. I don't blame all the teachers at all either because they're super overworked. Would it be better to try for a different program in the future? I guess I'm also just venting. I was really hoping for a job as a CNA soon but at this point, I feel like I'm going to be studying for a while after class ends just to get the skills down, and that's if the school even gets us actual clinical dates (we've only been given a general suggestion that they'll Hopefully be in June..) I'm just bummed. And I can't afford LPN/RN school right now unfortunately.

EDIT: thank you so much for all your replies :D I'm going to do my best to pass everything. I really appreciate all the suggestions for tools to use too, our school's videos for the skills are outdated so the new options help a lot ^_^

had a coworker help me clean up a resident and he told me i need to stop wiping and leave the poop for the next shift. I told him I’m wiping the resident because he’s not fully clean but my coworker thinks me wiping is triggering it.

my first night as a cna was absolutely insane. for some background, i just earned my cna license 3 weeks ago. the facility that hired me was very aware of this, even congratulating me once i got my paper copy in the mail. this place refers to itself as “luxury assisted living”, and it is very modern and really a beautiful building, almost looks like a country club. i had high hopes. i completed all the fun online modules and then was told when to come in for my floor training. i came in at 7pm for a 7pm-7am shift. the director of nursing walked me to the nurses station and introduced me to the other cnas and the nurses. the cna started giving me report and i half ass listened, looking around. everyone was grabbing their stuff to leave for the night. i asked who was training me. the cna laughs and says “nobody, you’re going to be on your own tonight. the girl that was going to train you quit today.” there are 120 residents in the building at the moment, minus memory care which has its own cna. meaning i would be in charge of answering all the call lights for these 120 residents with no idea of where any supplies are, who the patients are, and what equipment i needed. the cna then told me i needed a key fob and a phone with a certain app on it, none of this ever being explained to me before. i told her i had none of this. one girl left her key fob and said good luck. i grabbed my shit so fast and started leaving, one of the other cnas told me to stop and that she would stay, but only till 10pm and that someone would be coming in at 12am. i decided to try it out. it was a fucking disaster. i was hit, kicked, called slurs, and had to put at least 10 people to bed. it was absolutely horrific. a lot of these people needed more care beyond assisted living. one guy fell off the bed and i was warned to not go in his room because he “chokes women”. i damn near want to report this. my dilemma is, it took me a long time to get an interview with any cna job, i’m guessing because of my lack of experience. i don’t want to jeopardize my employment but that was nuts. does it sound like just a rough night or is this normal in the cna world?

Oh no! I set a boundary stating I would not be talked down to, spoken over, or verbally threatened and Mister Man Baby did not appreciate me not allowing him to steamroll me so he asked the nurse to fire me!

I already told my charge that I will not be taking him back tomorrow but I guess he made extra sure of that, so I don't need to deal with him the rest of tonight either. Nicest thing he's done for me in the whole time I've had him.

Don't you all love micromanaging patients that think you're just an incompetent idiot that doesn't know how to do your job so they very graciously give you step by step instructions and then get irate if you attempt to actually engage in care, refusing all intervention? I sure do! My years of experience obviously mean nothing because he is much better informed than anyone helping him.

(For context, he is like this with everyone, including doctors. I have no idea why he is even still here as he is refusing all treatment and care aside from demanding help to the commode and then refusing to get off)

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

I work noc caregiving shifts and had a weird interaction with a coworker recently that’s still sitting weird with me, and I genuinely can’t tell if I mishandled something socially or if this was just passive aggressive behavior.

For context, this was during a long shift and I had already been working/answering call lights throughout the night. Earlier on, I asked if I could take my break around 2:30am. She basically implied that probably wouldn’t work, so I said “okay, I’ll just take it at 3 then,” and she confirmed that was okay.

Important context: from around 2:30–3am SHE was on her own break, and during that time I was still answering call lights/pull cords by myself without issue.

Then at 3am I went on my break like we had agreed on. I drove to Taco Bell and came back around ~30 minutes later. When I got back she immediately kind of pressed me and said something along the lines of:

“Hey, when people call/pull cords can you answer them? I’ve been the only one answering them.”

That caught me off guard because I had literally been on my legally allowed break the entire last 30 minutes, which she already knew about because we had specifically discussed and agreed on the time beforehand. So I reminded her I had been on break.

Then she responded with “but still it’s been like that.”

That part is what bothered me most honestly, because it felt unfair. Before my break I HAD been answering multiple calls throughout the shift, including covering while SHE was on break earlier. So it felt like she was acting as if I hadn’t been contributing all night when that just wasn’t true.

Also right before I left for break, she randomly started telling me to handle laundry that had literally just been put into the washer and obviously wasn’t even close to done yet, which added to the feeling that she was already irritated with me for some reason.

I’m younger than a lot of my coworkers and still learning how to navigate healthcare/caregiving work dynamics, especially on noc shifts where people can get stressed, territorial, or burned out. So I genuinely want honest opinions:

Does this sound like I actually dropped the ball somehow, or does this sound more like one of those passive aggressive coworker situations where someone gets resentful the second they have to cover alone for a break?

I am burnt out from being a CNA but I know I can't stop working and this is the only job working with my school schedule. Is there anyone out there who got this license on their own or through their job?

A job that I took for PRN role at a assisted living and the manager mentioned this to me... And I didn't want to get too excited but I wanted to tell her where do I sign up at?!

But I know I just started there and I need to be consistent... But then again I don't want to hold back anymore to get to the next level...

Hi everyone!

I got into a free CNA class to get state certified! They literally cover everything and I'm so excited about it - not just because it's free but because I'm really excited to help people and learn more about the medical field. I feel a lot of purpose being in healthcare (right now I work in registration in the Emergency Room).

Anyways, I have had 3 people react negatively when I told them about it. They all basically said I'm gonna get sick of it soon and that it's "too much schooling" if you want to get anywhere in healthcare. It was No one who really matters but just wanted to get some opinions. And hopefully hear from people who actually have a passion for the work!

Hi all,

I currently am working at a facility where they will take pay comes out of our checks for a 30 minute break even if we dont get a break because there isnt a moment to do so...they will still take it out, has anyone else ever heard of this being done else where?

Today I was visiting a hospice paitent who resides in a LTCF for her bed bath. This particular paitent is having a very natural death and is at a point in her transition that she is no longer respondent or continent and is considered "total care".

I knocked and entered the room to see two PCTs changing her briefs. I recognized the guy as one of the regular aids I see often but didn't know the other. I picked up on just enough of their conversation to gather that she might be training, so I introduce myself and ask if she's new to CNA work. Turns out she's actually taking a management position in the facility but is shadowing across all roles. (Love to see it!)

Anyway, the guy starts to say since hospice is here we can just leave her. The paitent at this point is rolled on her side and they're wiping her. I tell him they're okay to finish up, and I'll take over when they're done. I go to start running the water and sanitizing the table top I use, etc.

Then we go right back to it. He says okay we're done and when I look over my paitent is laying there flat on the bed, no bottoms on, no cover. Just naked waist down.

With a smile on my face I said "Actually if you would go ahead and finish her care and put a brief on her, I'll start her bed bath after. With incontinent paitents I prefer that they have a brief on because we wash the peri area last during bed baths."

He ended up saying he's new and has only seen a bed bath once but that's not something they did. Well long story short, I invited him to stay and help and got to show this guy how to give a really thorough bed bath as well as some insider tricks (like leaving the brief on until we were ready to clean that area so we don't end up with accidental wet sheets or having to re-wash after a clean up).

Here's why I'm sharing this:

• I walked away feeling good about that interaction

• The PCT walked away feeling good about that interaction

• My paitent was treated with dignity (regardless of cognitive state)

• A new skill was taught without putting anyone down

I am constantly seeing posts of people bashing on others for being lazy and inept. I understand the frustrations and I have felt real burn out before. But maybe, if we all just take a breath and give some grace instead of following that initial reaction of frustration, we could all grow and all our paitents would be better off for it.

I could have just as easily gotten mad that he was being lazy and trying to pass off changing a patient on me. But sometimes it's the blind leading the blind and it's no one's fault. That "just leave it for hospice" would have followed over into the person training. You see it, call it out (kindly) and stop that culture from spreading.