Just a Heads up For Future Pennsylvania CNAs.

gymnut · Nov 25, 2010

I just found out last week that starting in January of 2011 there will be some changes regarding the written and skill portion of the exam.

The written portion of the exam just changed the amount of questions they ask on each topic. If this past year they asked 3 questions on ADLs or patient safety this year they may ask 5 or 6.

However you now have only 30 minutes to complete all 5 skills instead of the however long it took before (2 hours?) They said the reason for this is because 86% of all people finished their skills under the 30 minute marker. They also said they feel it will help with time management. I think that's a bunch of BS because in real life your time is managed more or less how cooperative your residents are. When I practiced putting on a TED stocking it took me less than 3 minutes. In clinical I had to put one on an obese woman with severe edema in her legs who was very twitchy. Yeah.... :rolleyes:

I was planning to take my clinicals on Dec 15th but I got hired at a hospital (Whoohoo!) and the orientation runs that week so now I'm bumped to January and no you can't be grandfathered in.