Can I be a good nurse, I hate being a CNA

NurseLatteDNP, MSN, DNP, RN · Nov 7, 2005

Thank you :)

NicInNC, CNA · Nov 7, 2005

I have been an aide since I started nursing school. I love that I am doing patient care, but I just hate my job. Every weekend night (7p-7a) I have an avarage of 24 patients by myself. I am PRN, and they always put me on the Cardiac floor because they never have an aide. It is a high acuity floor, so as soon as I get through with one set of vital signs, I turn around and start my next set. I do not have any time to do anything else but vital signs. It is just not right for the patients to suffer, because I don't have no time to do anything else for them. The nurses know that I am overwhelmed, so they try to help with the daily weights in the morning. I just can't do it anymore. I feel like crying every weekend. I think 24 patients per aide is too much and not fair to the patients. Don't get me wrong, I love working, I have worked all my life, and the nurses say that I am good at what I do. But I feel I am going to quit every day.:redlight: I told my boss about it, and he said that night shift can only have one aide, no matter how many patients they have. He does not agree with it, but there is nothing he can do, since administration assumes that all patients are sleeping at night. I love nursing, I love helping patients, but I just don't want to be the only CNA for 12 hours and 24 patients anymore. Can I be a good nurse, if I stress out like this? Please give me some advise.

Maybe find a LTC or smaller hospital for the time being? I thought I didn't want to go into nursing, but I'm now working as a CNA at a very small assisted living facility and I LOVE it. There are times I get stressed out, but I have the same amount of residents and work the same exact hall every time I work (every other weekend 3pm-11pm). I have an average of 18 residents. It's not too bad though because many can do things for themselves. There are some that I've never even stepped foot in their room because they don't need help with anything. It took me a few days of work just to realize that one resident has a pet cat (After I opened the door and the cat came running out)!

The hospitals pay more here, but I have ZERO interest in working at a hospital now that I have this job. My happiness is way more important than money.

jyoung1950 · Nov 7, 2005

I hear ya!

I was going to go into nursing a few years ago and got a job and trained and got my CNA certificate at a nursing home about 4 years ago. I gained experience there and then went to work at a nearby hospital because of the diversity of areas I could move into and better tuition benefits.

After seeing the stress the nurses are under there because of workload, etc. I gave up nursing.

I had 13 residents to care for on night shift at the NH. It kept me running and stressed out.

My home floor is Rehab at the hospital and I often work the day shift with 15 patients (try getting all them up, pottied, dressed, fed, vitals taken, etc by the time they are due at therapy).

If census is low there, I'm floated to other floors. I've worked days and evenings with 20 patients by myself. The nurses help as much as possible (they are wonderful here!) but I know they are burdened also.

I used to work like a tornado but I can't anymore. My body, mental state and emotional state is close to shutting down.

More and more patients are complete and maximum assist (2 or more people). There are days when the bell rings continuously and I find myself running to and fro around a floor almost the size of a football field.

I'm learning to be a medical coder. It's time to get off my feet and back on my butt.

The job affects all other aspects of my life. I barely clean house anymore. I get home and don't want to talk to anyone, handle mail etc.

I had to take a whole dollar an hour pay cut to come here. I'm 5 months overdue for my evaluation and whatever pittance of a raise they deem to give me.

The big hospital system that took over the little local one I work at incrementally cuts a little monetary benefit here and there every year.

They have their happy days where they have a theme and we get a party like meal time - free meal and a gift (hat, cup, T-shirt) and I guess they think that that will make us forget that we can't pay bills with a T-shirt. They probably pay the mental giants that think up this kindergarten stuff 60,000 a year.

I'm not so sure I can even last 2 years till I get my medical coder degree. I'm close to a nervous breakdown as it is now. Too many days anymore I find myself ready to walk out the door and never come back.

I know you will be a good nurse. Even though I don't want to be a nurse anymore, I do realize that I have absorbed so much that one can't get in the classroom. The nurses have taught me alot about diseases and their symptoms. And I think that you will be steps above other student nurses who won't work a day or 2 a week as a CNA.

I used to attribute the stress partly to my age - I'm almost 55. But the younger aids here feel as stressed out and like they are going crazy as I do. So it's just not an age issue.

The whole system is screwed up. Hospitals are doing their accounting and budgeting as if we were making widgets. They are trying to make the patients feel like they are at the Hilton instead of a hospital. They don't enforce or let us enforce visiting restrictions and hours. Makes for a very crowded room with equipment, tray tables, bedside commodes, wiring and another patient in the room.

The chaos and noise is overly taxing on one's sensory system. In the day we trip over visitors, case managers, doctors, respiratory therapists, meal deliveries, gurneys moving here and there transporting patients in and out.

If I could, I'd have the office folks have to shadow nurses and nursing assistants for a week. They'd get to help cleaning up poop. They'd get to struggle to get a stretcher into a small room with 2 patients, 2 beds, 2 bedside commodes, 2 tray tables, 2 nightstands, double the monitoring equipment and IV poles, assorted chairs and visitors. They'd have to decide what to do when a bed alarm goes off in one room and half the staff is trying to ambulate a 350 pound patient from a bedside commode to the bed in another room and the other staff members are getting someone on a stretcher to go to a test and someone pokes their head in and asks you to track down the one bladder scanner in the whole hospital. They'd have to try to feed 3-4 patients.

I can think of so much more they'd have to acknowledge and remember when they get to go back to do their budgets and plan their happy days and then I'd ask them how their attitude is. Oh, and they'd have to get paid like the rest of us during this shadow time.

You'd be a good nurse - but after seeing what it's like, it boils down more to do you want to be a nurse?

jyoung1950 · Nov 7, 2005

Maybe find a LTC or smaller hospital for the time being? I thought I didn't want to go into nursing, but I'm now working as a CNA at a very small assisted living facility and I LOVE it. There are times I get stressed out, but I have the same amount of residents and work the same exact hall every time I work (every other weekend 3pm-11pm). I have an average of 18 residents. It's not too bad though because many can do things for themselves. There are some that I've never even stepped foot in their room because they don't need help with anything. It took me a few days of work just to realize that one resident has a pet cat (After I opened the door and the cat came running out)!
The hospitals pay more here, but I have ZERO interest in working at a hospital now that I have this job. My happiness is way more important than money.

Assisted living aid work is worlds away different from working in a nursing home. Like you said, many of the residents can do for themselves. In a nursing home, the majority of your residents cannot do many things for themselves - cannot eat - have to feed them. Are incontinent - have to check on them every 2 hours, change their diapers, lotion them, clean them. Have to potty the rest every 2 hours. Can't dress themselves. Can't walk - have to lift them Can't wash themselves. Can't clean their own dentures or brush their teeth.

Where I live you can't be an aid in a nursing home unless you are certified. Assistants in assisted/personal care homes do not have to be certified.

Cute_CNA, CNA · Nov 7, 2005

The hospitals pay more here, but I have ZERO interest in working at a hospital now that I have this job. My happiness is way more important than money.

AMEN! Job satisfaction is ESSENTIAL!!!

I haven't yet found a job where I feel like I'm mostly satisfied.

NicInNC, CNA · Nov 7, 2005

Assisted living aid work is worlds away different from working in a nursing home. Like you said, many of the residents can do for themselves. In a nursing home, the majority of your residents cannot do many things for themselves - cannot eat - have to feed them. Are incontinent - have to check on them every 2 hours, change their diapers, lotion them, clean them. Have to potty the rest every 2 hours. Can't dress themselves. Can't walk - have to lift them Can't wash themselves. Can't clean their own dentures or brush their teeth.
Where I live you can't be an aid in a nursing home unless you are certified. Assistants in assisted/personal care homes do not have to be certified.

I'm certified and I have 7 residents that I have to toilet every 2 hours. I've had my share of nigts where I had to steam clean diarrhea up off the floor because one resident seems to think they need to pull their depends down on the way to the toilet. And for some reason they feel the need to hit me when I try helping them clean up.

Those 7 are also in wheelchairs, so I know about lifting. TRUST ME.

BUT, I have a lot more residents that can do most ADL's on their own, yes. That doesn't mean that ALL can though. While I may only have 7 that require total care, I'm kept busy between them and the ones that require partial care.

Here you have to be certified to work in ALF AND nursing homes. At least that's my understanding. I got my certification over the summer and had planned on working at the hospital, but the hours wouldn't work for me. Plus I wnjoy more one on one time with my residents and my facility gives me that opportunity.

I was just suggesting to the OP that they may want to look into something like that or a place where she/he would have less amount of patients/residents.

NicInNC, CNA · Nov 7, 2005

AMEN! Job satisfaction is ESSENTIAL!!!
I haven't yet found a job where I feel like I'm mostly satisfied.

I really do LOVE my job. I have nights when I just want to cry because it seems like everything is pure chaos (I should tell you the chicken stew story one day about how everyone got food poisioning. OMG what a JOB).

I work with the same people every night. The facility is very small and only 4 of us work that shift. We all help each other and get along great! The outside family of the residents are so nice to us too. Constantly complimenting us.

I've worked in a nursing home where EVERYONE required total care and I just never felt like I was able to give them 100% because of how busy we were kept. Now since I'm at a place where all but 7 of my residents don't need total care, I have more time to spend with them. When i shower them, I can take my time, massage their backs, and tuck them into bed. They hug me goodnight and it just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they really do appreciate me.

menolly_33 · Nov 7, 2005

yes, you will be a good nurse, you already demonstrate one of the most important characterists of a good nurse, you are worried about your patients. This being said, I feel you should run, as fast as possible, from something that is so toxic. I worked on med-surg for a year, as a new grad, because I was told every new nurse should have one year of experience on med-surg. It almost killed me, I came very close to sucide, because of some of the issues you brought up. (subject for another thread)

I now work in ER, and would not work anywhere else, you have to find the area that works for you Anyway, I advice you to try to get a job in the ER - I'm not sure what our ER techs have to do to be certified, but I do know that we love having them. I've worked in many ER's where the techs could start IV's, do casting, insert foleys, and even suture. It depends on the policies of the facility. You will learn many, many skills that you will need as a nurse. Don't get me wrong, you will also work very hard and the stress is very high. However you will be part of a team and very valued, and if that is not the case where you work, find another job. There are so many available for caring providers, which, from your orginal post describes you.

:D

Thunderwolf, MSN, RN · Nov 8, 2005

Can you be a good nurse?...why, yes you can!

sweetielin · Nov 9, 2005

you will be a good nurse because you care about the wellbeing of your patients. i know how frustrating it is to bed short staffed and how it feels when you can not adequately care for your patients becaused of it. when i was a cna, i wondered the same thing. i also hated my job. not because of the actual work but because there never seemed to be enough time to get it all done. and not enough help. i hope you feel better about this. even as a nurse, i still have nights like that. on nights when i am assigned 23 patients, i find myself on the verge of a nervous break down. we have talked to our don about it but it doesn't do a bit of good. mostly i love my job, but we all have days/nights like that.

Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN · Nov 12, 2005

CNA work can be physically grueling. I'll never understand why a facility thinks it's cost-effective to reduce tech hours, as I've seen done. To my way of thinking, just the opposite is the way to go. Generally, the more unlicensed folks on the floor, the less RNs will be needed (up to a point and to a degree, of course) and the better the care that'll be provided.

Freeing RNs for the higher level / critical thinking role they're meant to undertake and employing techs for the delegatable stuff (at a considerably lower hourly rate) makes perfect sense. But then again, that's exactly the critique of some docs I work with: "If it makes sense, guaranteed it would be done around here."

Getting back to the original post: Your not wanting to be a slave, doesn't mean you won't be a fabulous nurse.

After my nurse externship this summer in the ER, I just couldn't make myself go back to my CNA spot on a med / surg floor for similar reasons to what you've laid out. In fact, I've cut my hours drastically this, my last, year of school.

CNA work in just about any facility is one of the toughest jobs out there.

Good luck!