Pre-nursing job at a hospital

verene, MSN · Mar 27, 2015

Hospital jobs that do not require any certification or experience are likely to be in non-medical support positions. Since you've worked in a restaurant, I'm assuming you have a food handlers permit? You might apply in dietary services - many of those roles are entry level and give you a little bit of contact with patients and/or floor staff.

SunriseDay · Mar 27, 2015

I can only think of hospital volunteering... or jobs which will not likely count to improving your chances of being admitted to RN school.

Wake88, BSN, RN · Mar 27, 2015

Your best bet is to save up money and take a CNA certification class provided at your local community college.

That way you'll get your foot in the door, and the experience you gain as a CNA will benefit you greatly.

windsurfer8, BSN, RN · Mar 28, 2015

It does not matter. The experience you need is 1. Get to work on time. 2. Don't ***** at work about your job. 3. Learn how to follow the chain of command at work. 4. Be reliable. 5. GET TO WORK ON TIME. If you learn these then you are already ahead most people when it comes to work.

HTCC · Mar 28, 2015

We use patient care techs. Similar to CNA but they get on the job training. Some of our people started in EVS (housekeeping). Check out the career portion of your local hospital's website. The job descriptions should help you choose things that don't need experience or certifications.

direw0lf, BSN · Mar 28, 2015

Without any degree, there's dietary aide (delivering food trays), patient transport (transferring pt's from their rooms to x-ray, dialysis, etc), and patient observer (such as watching suicide risk pt's, basically you sit in their room and watch them). You may need CPR cert which you need anyway before nursing so get that anyway. With pt transport, it can be difficult because sometimes no one can help you get the pt out of bed, and they expect you to be on time and competent.

Aliareza, BSN · Mar 28, 2015

It depends on the state you're in.

In my state, you don't have to have CNA licensure in order to do patient care. Most of the nurse extenders (what my hospital calls them) have it anyway and it's how they got their jobs, but I have never done a CNA course and was hired before I ever started nursing school.

If you can get in that way, I highly recommend it! My pre-nursing school hospital experience as an NE made my first semester Fundamentals class a real snooze-fest, which left me plenty of time to master the other first semester nursing course, Assessment. Sometimes that kind of hands-on hurts you (for example, I got a question wrong once because a lab value was within normal for my hospital's testing range but not for the textbook's), but overall, it's been a huge help.

Anything you can do that lets you have access to a direct patient care area of the hospital is great. Short of that, though, just getting your foot in the door can be a real bonus. You can find out how a hospital is really run and not just what's on their mission statement. That'll be important when you're deciding where you want to work after graduating.