CNA 'tudes

[NoScrubs]

I work among two CNAs who are in their 40s/50s. According to them, they have been CNAs for 20+ years. I frequently hear them gossiping and talking down about certain nurses (especially new ADN grads). I've heard such comments along the lines of, "anyone can get a two year degree, I'm 20+ years older than her, I could do her job with one hand, etc." Basically, these two think that because they are older that they are wiser than some of us on the floor. I'm not a new grad, but I am a young nurse, younger than these two women. To me, their comments are insulting- but, nothing has ever been directed towards me/said to my face, so I try and ignore them. Has anyone ever experienced this before- older CNAs who think they know everything and are real ignorant about it? If so, have you done anything about it?

[Nola009]

Well, most of my cnas are wonderful. However, there is one who needs a lot of prompting, then resists direction. She doesn't help the other aides --- doesn't pull her fair share of the weight and so everybody hurts a little. I've mentioned it to management. They all know and agree, yet nothing is done. It's some kind of fear r/t her being a minority or something.

[misstrinad]

I have a lot of older CNAs on my unit too. When I switched from Cna to rn on the same unit I made sure to talk to the CNAs and clue them in. I had heard so much complaining before about nurses not doing a darn thing and it is so not true. I made sure to slide things in during general conversation.... Ex: can you please let me know if Mr x has a bm, if not I have to give him mom bc he hasn't gone in 2 days but I don't want to give it until after breakfast bc I know him needing to go suddenly during meal service is a bad time for you &him. If the mom doesn't work we will have to do a supp when you toilet him afterr lunch or he is going be very agitated come evening. Or after a fall: do you have time to take their tpr quick while I go get the paper work I have to do? Every fall means at least half an hr to 45 min of paperwork, Yuck.

Or can you take ms x to the br? I would but I absolutely have to call this Dr back and get these bs done. Then the next time I have time to toilet someone for them I do it and let them know in passing: by the way I took Mr y to the br about 15 min ago and I put a fresh pad on so he should be good until after lunch now.

It all seemed to help them realize that there is more to my job then they realized, in fact a few I'm close to have actually verbalized that.

I also make sure they know I trust their judgement on things that are within their scope of practice. Like a resident that's declining that could easily either want to get up or stay in bed that day, during report I'll tell them what happened my shift & the shift before & let them know it's okay if they want to stay in bed after cares are done, let me know if they seem SOB to you and I can come do a lung assessment, they might need another neb. If you need help let me know otherwise I'll be down to check on them again in an hr.

I've used mistakes I've found as teaching moments... Ex finding o2 bumped up from 2l to 2.5 and instead of getting mad and going to the manager explained why bumping o2 up can actually back fire as I turned it back Down. Then I found that never happened again.

Sometimes explaining things they don't know has really helped me. Once or twice a month I bring in treats to share too.