Let me start by saying I am a CNA and I'm not talking about all CNAs. I have a problem with some coworkers and even some CNAs in the forums here that just complain all day about how hard our jobs are and how the RNs don't do any thing, we do all the hard work they just pass meds, sit, and chart. Even heard someone say we should get paid as much as the nurses smh
1. We all work hard, CNA, LPN, RN, etc
2. There's more to being a nurse then passing meds and charting, and they do their fair share of work doing things we as CNAs don't have the knowledge and skill to comprehend and do
3. CNAs are paid horribly and deserve more, but to say as much as a RN is ridiculous, c'mon lets get real
4. If you feel this way shut up and find away to get more education and move on like I am
Again I'm a CNA, I'm overworked, and sometimes there are lazy nurses but all the whining and ridiculous comments are annoying. Sorry for the little vent.
The reason RNs are always doing paperwork is that nurses have to chart everything that involves care of the patient. When a nurse goes into a patient's room they are observing so many things that you wouldn't even think about. IVF rates; infusion sites, IV restarts, wound care, medication administration, and so on and this has to be documented and if any problems are noted, they have to be addressed and how they were addressed has to be documented.. There is never a dull moment. . There is always something that needs to be done and if not there is always something that should be done to improve the care of your patient.
At my job, some of them are good and proactive; some of them are awful and do the bare minimum. I know which ones are which. Whatever...taking care of patients is my job and I do what needs to be done, and complaining about them won't do a darn thing to improve the situation because they've been there for decades. When the awful ones are on, the nurses are answering a majority of the call lights, toileting, cleaning up, etc. I delegate when I'm busy with something else, and I follow up on it because I know I have to to get it done.
I nearly went off one day when this exchange occurred: I answered a call light, and the patient needed to be boosted to eat. Don't ask why the boost wasn't done when the tray was delivered. I haven't a clue. Anyway, I stepped out of the room and asked the first CNA I saw to help me with the boost. She looked at me and said, "That's not my patient." I answered, "It's not my patient either. I need to boost her. Come in now." I ignored the eye roll, and the patient got boosted with the CNAs help.
In an average day with the awful CNAs, I do at least one 1:1 feed while charting with one hand. I clean up poop at least once on an incontinent patient. I toilet most of my patients and chart while I'm waiting for them to be done in the bathroom or on the BSC. I do at least one missed chem stick. I remove most of the food trays and chart intake. I empty most of the urinals and commodes and chart output. I make the beds on patients who are usually independent, but are out for a procedure or are sitting in the chair. I get my deconditioned patients up to the chair by myself. (I've even had a CNA tell me she needed help getting a patient up to the chair after I asked her to do it, and I ended up doing it myself while she stood behind me.) I do oral care on bedbound patients and I turn them q 2 because it's usually not done by the CNAs because they "don't have the time." The only thing I absolutely will not do is a bedbath; that I always delegate that. It's a responsibility of their job, but it still needs to be purposefully delegated because they try to skip them.
Somehow, they are always "too busy," but I manage to do their job and mine and still get out on time. The only time where everything goes to hell is when I have unstable patients that need a lot of interventions or I call a rapid response. For the most part, though, I wish we would just get rid of them, change to primary nursing, and lower our ratios.
At my job, some of them are good and proactive; some of them are awful and do the bare minimum. I know which ones are which. Whatever...taking care of patients is my job and I do what needs to be done, and complaining about them won't do a darn thing to improve the situation because they've been there for decades. When the awful ones are on, the nurses are answering a majority of the call lights, toileting, cleaning up, etc. I delegate when I'm busy with something else, and I follow up on it because I know I have to to get it done.
I was a CNA for many years, then a LPN, and curently a RN. Gone are the days of CNA when all I had to do was report to the nurse regarding a patient. So and so has a open sore on their bottom, here are the vitals for Mrs Smith and she's got a temp, and Mr. Man hasn't peed all shift and it's 11pm. See you tomorrow. I would rarely work overtime because I reported everything to the RN who had to asses, call for orders, chart, follow up while I went on my merry way. Then I became a LPN. I remember my first night on my own. I went from the first med pass immediately to the 2nd (because I was so slow and overwhelmed), no break even to pee. At like 10:30 at night, I was sitting crying in the bathroom, peeing, and eating my sandwich, lol. As a RN, it is my responsibility to ensure that everything runs correctly or it's my butt. It is my responsibility to take care of everything and then management hands me yet more paperwork and tasks to complete.
I know that CNA's are my front line. They are my eyes and ears and most work just as hard as I did when I was a CNA. The LPN is my next line. Passing meds and catching the things that they do as they spend a bit more time with pts than I can. I am out there doing what only the RN can do. Without the RN license on the line, most of the other lines wouldn't be able to work because of state and federal regs. Don't think for a second a facility wouldn't be happy to run without the license, but with the advanced education comes advanced training that is needed.
I'm on a roll here, unfortunately. I was ticked off during my last shift...
A confused patient pulled his IV. I was in the nurse's station when the CNA walked in with a glucometer in his hand and said something about it. I went to the room. It was a freakin' blood bath. My coworker was in the bathroom with the patient, no gloves on, holding a paper towel to the site. I helped her get gloves on, ran to get gauze and tape all the while dialing housekeeping for a cleanup, and when I came back, she was rightfully berating the CNA. "The chem stick for the roommate isn't important. You see someone bleeding from a pulled IV, you put on pressure to the site and call for help from us. Forget about the chem stick for a minute! Prioritize!"
I worked as a nursing assistant while in nursing school and understand the work. It is hard, physically work but I left every morning at 7:00 am. Now as a RN I work with some good NA's and one older very lazy NA that I'm about to lose patience with, I physically do most of her work for her and still have to remind her to do the little things.
All I can say is I left work this morning at 7:45 am and my nursing assistant left at 7:00. I have never seen an NA or CNA stay a second pass 7:00, they want us to help them with there job but they can't stay late and help us with ours!
As a CNA, I completely understand. I see the nurses on my unit doing all kinds of work. Mostly paperwork, i.e. charting, etc. The rest of the time they are passing meds, which is really time consuming.
As a nursing student, this gives me some much needed perspective. I am getting into the nursing field because I want to help people. Clearly, working in a unit such as mine is NOT the place I want to be. I do not want to be a rolling pharmacy. I want to be hands-on, provide bedside care, and so on.
This is the main reason I want to go into trauma, or anesthesia, or some other high-energy job. I want to be challenged every day. I don't want to become complacent.
I work on a very busy tele/med-surg floor. Probably a lot like the kind of floor you are talking about. I cannot tell you how wrong you are about the kind of care nurses on a floor like this gives. I was a tech on this floor before I graduated nursing school and I can tell you that the impression from the other side of what an RN really does is not reality. I remember how I felt about some of the nurses and I didn't really understand why some of them were so stressed out all the time, because from the outside looking in, you don't really see what they are really doing and responsible for. I have been on this floor as an RN for over two years now and have learned so much. I've learned how to be a nurse, how to juggle 6 very sick patients all needing a different kind of care, going to different procedures, discharges, new admits, post ops, critical drips, monitoring their vital signs, addressing new problems, putting out new fires, keeping up with new orders, charting every little thing you do, more than just "passing meds" but thinking about the meds you are passing, making sure not to make errors, making sure to hold certain meds based on whatever might be going on with the patient, (ie: low HR hold beta blocker, etc, etc, etc) dressing changes, new IV's, pain control, demands from doctors, demands from patients and families, demands from upper management, in the middle of all of that, having your phone ring every five seconds and interrupting your train of thought or your teaching or assessing your patient, etc. And you better hope that one of your patients don't start going downhill. Also, in the middle of all of that, you are keeping up with the basic care of your patient because the techs are also busy or maybe the techs that day aren't the best at doing what they are supposed to do. Then the constant adding on of new things we are responsible for. Our hospital is taking away a lot of our support staff. No more wound care nurses, no more IV therapy team, no more admission nurses, less HUC's, less techs...believe me when I say that being that "complacent floor nurse" is HARD and challenging work. You won't know it though, unless you have been there yourself.
I've come across nurses who really do think CNAs are beneath them and who will ring the damn call bell for the CNA when the CNA was clearly running ragged. I've also come across nurses who feel CNAs are worth their weight in gold and appreciate us. It takes all kinds. I will say being a CNA is usually much more physically demanding and in that sense, harder, than being a nurse but that's not to say being a nurse isn't harder in most other ways than being a CNA. I no longer worry about where I am on the totem pole or who's job is harder or who can do what. If there is something I can help the nurse with I'm game and they repay the favor. I absolutley find the hospital setting much much better to work in as a CNA. In LTC I wasn't alowed to so much as change an o2 tank or apply barrier cream......insane.
I hate lazy people in general, so...not sure why this thread is pointing out one group of people. Seems unfair.
That being said, what I DON'T like (as an aide) is when a nurse starts barking orders at me. I'm an aide, not a slave, and I am here to assist the nurse, not to be someone's punching bag. I work in two different units. One unit is great. The nurses work together with the aides and have no problem putting a patient on a bed pan or cleaning a dirty bottom. I greatly appreciate that. The other unit, however, is a hot mess. They complain about having to do "PCA" work (nevermind we have twice as many patients and can only do so much). It can be very upsetting.
My clinical instructor, now an NP, used to work as a PCA. To this day, he HATES seeing nurses mistreat PCAs, and reminded all nursing students that we are not above anything and to treat PCAs well.
That being said, I do know of PLENTY of lazy CNAs, and it is a pain in the butt to work with them.
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DoeRN
941 Posts
At my old job all the PCT's were required to follow the nurses for 2 shifts while in orientation. It's a real eye opener
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