changed my name...

wow... why so far away? I live in the middle of nowhere and there are still like 6 nursing homes within 45 minutes of me.

The clinicals are fun. I got a chance to practice a some skills, but never saw the "big picture." I think it would have been useful for them to explain rounds, 2-assists, etc. Just so we could see how organized you have to be.

I wish students would come to where I work!

Hi,

My clinicals were not heard except for things like b.p., taking weights etc. but we had a good teacher and so she would make sure we all got it. I am better in writing parts as opposed to hands on. I am sure you will do well. Just find a friend and keep practicing. The place I did my CNA testing had very nice ladies and most of us passed.

I can't say we had exactly a good experience in doing clinicals. It seemed the cna's disappeared as soon as we got there. LIke fuzzywuzzy said i wish they would have did more like the job shadowing kind of think. Just so we could see what it is "really like". To have that many patients at one time. When we want in we only had one patient the first week and two the second week. But like i said the cna's kinda disappeared making it hard at first to learn the residents and their needs. At the end though i was glad for the experience. Good luck to you.

When I took my class, we also experienced the "disappearing CNA" phenomenon. I can understand in a way - you're used to your routine and having a group of extra people around might throw it off, but still.

When I worked at the hospital last year, though, I really liked how the college CNA class did their clinicals. They came to our unit in smallish groups, and their instructor assigned one or two students to each CNA. The students shadowed us all day. I went about my usual routine, and showed them/explained what I was doing along the way. I enjoyed doing this because it gave me an opportunity to show them all the things I wish I had been shown during my clinicals, and most of them were eager to jump in and learn. They had to check off each skill with us first and then with their instructor. I think it was a really effective way to do it and I wish my clinicals had been like that.

Our clinicals were great and bad
Great because most of the cnas were happy to have us, happy to teach us, and many times would go out of their way to find patients for us to do skills on so we could get checked off. The staff with a few bumps along the road of course, always made us feel very welcome and continually said how they liked having us there. But then we were the first clinical rotation they ever had there. And we got a chance to get to know the patients and really care for them.

Bad because we saw a few of the cnas do things that were not according to state and not even healthy. (perineal care without gloves and handwashing, yuck!) And in the end we had to go back to lab and relearn a few procedures for state because the way the ltcs do them is so much different then we'll be tested. And after changing that many diapers, that many lifts to the restroom ect, all of us said we didn't want to work in ltc.

Our CNAs disappeared on us too. They'd ask us to empty the trash or take out someone's dentures and we'd look up 2 seconds later and they'd be gone. If I was doing it I would have the student shadow me or work together the whole time.

I'll never forget clinicals. It was a tough, shared experience for the class and actually brought us together, as a class. It's one thing to sit next to people in the classroom. Quite another when you're all in the nursing home together not ever having done anything to a 'real' patient/resident before.
The days just flew by -- and everyone was wiped out afterwards. The first couple of days were very tense. After a couple of days, it was still tense, but you felt a bit more confortable.'

You'll get through it and look on it as a 'life experience' I would think. I have to say, we did have a good experience, as rough as it may have seemed at the time. Our instructor really was good and the facility was good.