Your cna class and clinicals

[CNAkat31]

Attention all cnas, How was your cna classes and clinicals?

[mvm2]

I found a Home Health Agency that gave CNA classes twice a year. I was hired by them as an Home Health Aide (HHA) in the spring, and took my CNA classes in the fall. Now am working for them as a CNA. My classes where fine. Great instructor, and our classes had only 6 people in it so it was small enough you could make sure you were learning what you needed and it was easy to ask questions. Our Clinicals where at our local Vetrans home, and I loved it being with the men and women who faithfully served our country. Made me feel so good to give back for what they did for me. I wished we had some more hands on things to do, but other then that it was fine

[mrs.hood]

Attention all cnas How was your cna classes and clinicals?[/quote']

My class is at a local nursing home. I haven't gotten to clinicals yes but so far class is fine. There's only 15 of us and the teacher is great. Its 5 days a week and a lot of reading and things to renember in a sshort time as my class is only 14 days. Clinical will be at the nursing home.

[TurtleCat]

Mine was 4 weeks long, 3 nights a week, and took place at a trade school near my house. I paid $800 for it. All in all, I had fun and it was a very informative experience. The textbook instruction was very thorough and my instructor was very kind and knowledgeable: she was an LPN with decades of experience. The material itself was easy enough although somewhat time-consuming because we covered a lot in a short period of time. My classmates were also very nice, it was a small class with only 3 other students though.

The only complaint I had was I felt that it could have been a lot more thorough in making sure we had our physical skills down pat. I'm not sure how other people's experiences were, but in my class, our skill instruction consisted of watching videos and a day of making beds + taking vital signs, and that was the extent of it. As a result, I felt poorly prepared when I actually entered the nursing home and struggled a lot. I was VERY slow and clumsy and the other aides hated me for it. To me, it seemed like a mistake on the instructor's part to emphasize the theoretical portion over the skills because, think about it, what are you going to actually be using the most in the real world? Plus, I'd say the theoretical portion of the CNA class is almost pathetically easy; the skills, on the other hand, actually do take a little bit of know-how and practice.

My clinicals were 4 days long and took place at a nearby nursing home. We were paired up with a CNA and basically observed them as they went about their work, seeing how everything was done and helping out here and there. Personally, I found myself wishing it had been a little longer and that I'd gotten more hands-on practice; I really didn't get to do as much hands-on as I would've liked because the CNAs were always in a hurry and letting a student do cares would have slowed them down, although I can't say I blame them too much, I would've probably done the same in their case. At the same time, though, it was a real eye-opener and helped me decide that this was what I really wanted to do. I later wound up applying to the same site I did my clinicals at and worked there for a bit.

Working as a CNA has been a great experience so far, but far from easy! I'll tell you, while I found the CNA class to be easy peasy for the most part, the job itself is a different ballgame entirely. One of the hardest things I've ever done... although worth it.

[Jcgirl]

I start my program in June. I'll be attending a 10 day program from 7:00-3:30pm at a local LTC facility. The course was $500