CNA: Krappy attitude

[FinderKeeper]

Hi all,

I had a call for a CNA class interview today. CNA certificate is a requirement for the RN school, so I gotta do it, plus, I think working as a CNA will def help me with experience for the school.

The lady whom I was supposed to call to set up an interview was acting as if I am just one of the many people bothering her today. I got the impression during the conversation that CNA's are not really valued (at that particular healthcare facility), and that they are pretty much the "invisible" people. I think it is wrong because CNA's do a LOT of important things, and stuff that no one else would want to do.

I have an interview on Monday, so we will see. Maybe I should just forget about attitude, and what they think of their CNA's, and just take the class, pass the test, and find work somewhere else. I was planning on working as a CNA for a couple of months, or so... for experience.

In any way it will be a huge learning experience.

Do you think it's common that CNA's are treated as krap?

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

FinderKeeper. . .You need to realize that psychology underlies so much of people's behavior. Communication skills are important to develop and learn. Understand that people can have a bad day and show it in the inflection of their voice, their facial expressions or their body movements. They may seem angry or disgusted and it may have nothing at all to do with you. Many of us are unaware of how we sound and are perceived by others. So, don't discount that part of the equation. The person you talked to may have just dealt with the worst problem of her day prior to taking your call, may have been assigned to take the calls regarding the CNA program and really does a different job and was a bit put off about it (not your fault) or had someone standing in front of her waiting urgently for something. I wouldn't judge how the CNAs at this facility are treated by the telephone discourtesy of one employee. Wait until you meet other employees there before making a decision about their attitudes.

[momcat107]

As CNA for 25 years,last 10 with Hospice I have seen and lived through the treatment CNAs are given.If a nurse calls out sick they call an agency for staff relief. If a aide or two call out,you work short.The last unit I worked on was a 60 bed. On the 3-11 shift if fully staffed you had 6 aides.ha haha. IN the yr and a half I was there,I saw full staff twice.State inspectors were there.You hoped for 5,most evening we would be happy with 3 3-11 ers,and a 3-7 to get us through dinner.Most of the nurses I worked with sat on their buts,ignoring PT call lights ect.As long as they stayed out of my way. One night I get paged to the front desk,this BAAAAd nurse Trudy needs a favor.Could I run out to her car and get the bag on the front seat? I said sure (unbenounced) to me,it was pouring out.of course her car was at the far end of the lot. I fially get to her car get the look inside to make sure I had the right bag,it was the only bag.I am hurrying back because i am soaking wet and cold and I slip and fall and the bag opens up.All this for a freaking bag of chips.:angryfire..that was the last favor I ever did.... :trout: this is one of the reasons I work homecare...

[bethin]

My former director of staff development stated that CNAs were "undereducated and poor."

That really frosts my crack. I am not undereducated, in fact I have enough credits to graduate with a Bachelor's if I could stick to a major. I think I have over 100 college credits. Let's see, my majors have been architecture, political science, nursing, criminal justice, nursing and political science.

As far as being poor, what would she expect when you make $10/hr.

I had an RN (that started out as an aide) tell me that aides were "crap(not her exact word) under her feet". You better believe I called her on that one, wrote her up and she was forced to not only apologize to me but to every aide.

[RNHawaii34]

i was a cna for 10 years before becoming an RN. I got treated like crap and treated nicely by some RNs, now I felt that I am having crappy nurse assistants at work, some of them have bad attitudes, and I felt like snapping, but I figure maybe because they felt that they feel less responsible for the residents, then they care less..or maybe it's just their personality. I had an issue with one aide who didn't tell me that the resident has a temp of 100.5, when I checked it two hours later, she went up to 102.0 ® now, I had to transfer the resident to acute care.....and guess what she said when I told her "pls. tell me asap if the temp. is above 100 next time", she said: "it's only 100.5".guess what? CNA evaluation is coming up:nono:

[SonicnurseRN]

I'm a CNA @ a local hospital & also in RN school. If you are getting that impression from your interview, why not interview @ other hospitals and find a hospital with a good fit? You probably have a lot of other options. Mine is wonderful and everyone is treated with respect. Being a CNA is HARDDDDDDD work - why work w/ people who are going to disrespect you????

[Infectious]

My advice to you is if you don't need to work as a CNA before you go into RN school then don't worry about it. You could just get the certification. One of two things could happen-you could like working as a CNA and you could find it beneficial to your work experience OR you could not like being a CNA and not find it beneficial to your work experience. I am an RN and went to CNA school even though it was not mandatory to the RN program. I took the class and did the clinicals and got certified but did not like the dirty work that it is and the payrate. IMHO, if you work as a CNA you will HATE nursing. In any case, once you get that license as an RN (or even if you want to work on an IP), definitely research around the hospitals/facilities and inquire about the new-grad programs. A really good new-grad program can be all the answer that you need in order to succeed in learning to become a good nurse. Good luck!

[Preemienurse23]

I worked as a nurse tech during school, and we were the "rung" above CNA's on some days and lower the next. I have seen the nurses treat their support staff like dirt, and I valued them when I was taking patients or during clinicals . Usually the only time I had any problems with the support "doing their job" was during clinicals, when they expceted the students to do total care on 5-7 patients. I personally believe that any nurse who thinks that they are better should be demoted for a few weeks until they can do the same thing that the CNA's do!

[RNperdiem, RN]

CNA's who are known to be nursing students are often treated differently than the other aides not in school. There is currency in being middle class and educated; many of these aids do not get the level of disrespect the less educated aides get. Guess which CNA's remain on staff year after year long after the nursing student CNA's have left.

[Preemienurse23]

At the hospital we worked at, we the nurse techs would do all the jobs on the floor from being a PCA to actually taking a pt load as a nurse and doing everything for those pts except for meds.

[EmmaG, RN]

Do you think it's common that CNA's are treated as krap?

Not around me they don't lol.

When I was night resource nurse on our unit, this is something I simply would not stand for--- ever. I've been told I can be a pretty scary person, and I've 'scared' quite a few who felt they could abuse our NA's and techs.

My personal pet peeve is the nurse who is in a patient's room and is asked for bathroom help, water, whatever, and will go room to room hunting down the NA in order to tell them to go help that person. Granted, there are occasions when a nurse has to do something else an NA can't, and needs them to assist, but I've found that most who make a practice of this are abusive and lazy. I once pulled aside a new grad who went through every room on our 34 bed unit to find our only NA working that night in order to tell her to remove a bedpan from a patient. I made it crystal clear to her that I had better not EVER witness her doing such a thing ever again. And she didn't.

I will not ask an NA to do anything I wouldn't do, and the ones I've worked with realize this and will go that extra mile when they know I'm in trouble and need help. Even those who are not assigned to my patients. They know that if I come to them to do something, it's because I have other issues I have to deal with, not that I am lording it over on them. I give them the respect they deserve and let them know I appreciate their help.

Trust me. Beyond the fact that everyone should be treated with respect and given validation for their contributions to the care of the patients, an NA who senses that you don't respect them and are taking advantage of them can make your life miserable.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

good grief! where are all you working that you are treated so badly? i've been watching the posts to this thread as they've come through my e-mail and i'm am just flabbergasted. however, i want to tell you that for part of my career i worked exclusively with lpns who pretty much made the same complaints against the rns they worked with. there was one lpn in particular who would, on one hand, go around boasting about how wonderful it was to work with me, and on the other hand, never miss a chance to complain about how i sat around at the desk when there was a crisis going on with one of her patients. well, hello, an lpn in the hospital can't call the doctor for orders which is what i was doing in every instance. everyone who has ever worked with me knows that the only time i ever sit down is to chart or call a doctor. i never took breaks and i would jump up to do for a patient before myself. i had to take her aside 3 times over a 5-year period because of her talking like this about me to the other staff. it was pure meanness on her part. she was resentful that i would follow up on things that were delegated to her thinking that she was beyond even the kindliness of supervision and she thought this would be her little childish way of getting back at me. is that some of what is going on here? i know there's some really uncaring and disrespectful people out there, but it's also unfair to brand all rns as being the same as a handful of jerks. as another poster said, i've worked with a few cnas who were the bottom of the barrel when it came to performing their job. my first response was always to instruct and educate them in how to do their job. what i got in return was nastiness and attitude for my kind and caring efforts. what's with that? i had bosses too and i sure didn't respond to them like that when i was told i was doing something wrong.

when we were short in the nursing home i hurt too. i instructed the aides in ways to cut some corners and to get just the most basic work done. my experience as a nursing assistant helped. i felt that was part of my role as the charge nurse. i'm sorry if some of you don't have charge nurses that do that for you.

[TrudyRN]

CNA's do hard but vital work, for low pay. I value the good ones tremendously and appreciate them so much. "Good" means that they don't hide, don't take excessive breaks, follow the rules about lifting and handwashing, do what I ask them to do, and are courteous and pleasant. Also, they don't get overly involved in the patients' personal lives, they don't abuse, steal, lie, have excessive absence or tardiness, etc.

Some have great attitudes, some have bad ones. Most that I have worked with have been nice people, hard workers, good to their patients, and a blessing, in general. They don't walk on water but they are a very important part of the health care team.

They need to remember that part of their title is "assistant" or "aide" and do what the nurse in charge asks of them, also they need to keep the nurse in the loop and quickly report changes in the patients' condition, report bad vital signs, etc.