Difficulty with a CNA

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I am an RN and I view myself and my CNA as team. Most of the time it works out... I treat the CNAs with respect. At the beginning of the shift I go over our patients with the CNA and at that time delegate appropriate tasks. I usually don't have a problem, like I said.

K back to me... I'm an easy-going nurse that has a very good sense of humor, I'm also not as good with confrontation as I should...but I start losing my sense of humor when I have to ask a certain CNA to get a BP like 5 times or if there is a scheduled task like rechecking a temperatiure or discontinuing a foley... and I ask if she has those scheduled task results... no I didn't do it. Or how about at the beginning of the shift, I tell her so and so needs to be repositioned every 2 hours and that I will help her if there isn't another CNA available. What is it that she doesn't get? I am not delegating things that are difficult or that she hasn't done a million times.

I feel like I'm constantly going over her work and either doing it since she didn't, or redoing things... She CONSTANTLY is saying "Why, I normally do it so-so way or only once a shift for vitals" to everything. I've tried to be nice about it, but I'm to the point where I want to say, "Well this is what I need done, and if it isn't, there will be problems." Of course I'm too chicken with confrontation...

I guess the point to this is, how do you deal with a nursing assistant (or even other coworkers) that deliberately does not do what I ask them to do??

Thanks in advance (o and I'm working on this communication problem of mine by reading a book);)

Thanks...Jenn

Specializes in OB.
If I faked vital signs, I could not sleep at night! What if someone was really sick, and it was not discovered because of that?

I have the opposite problem, I take an inordinate amount of time getting my vitals because I am too careful. There must be a balance. And I do make mistakes. Sometimes I get different readings because of the difference in how each dynamap reads the vitals.

But how common is this, the faking of vitals I mean? I saw it in the nursing home because the na's sometimes just did not know how to listen for a manual bp, which was bad enough, but why would someone fake it when you can use a dynamap, easy as pie?

because when she faked them, she didnt actually have to walk in the room.pure laziness, and oh so very scary

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

Its None Of Their Darn Business If I Choose To Sit On The Computer All Day If I Want To. They Where Not Hired To Be My Boss And Beside Do Not Even Understand What My Job Requires. I Quit My Last Job In Part From The Idiots They Hire From The Nearest Getto, They Complain Constantly And You Can Hardly Understand Them. Most Are Racists, Who Can Careless What You Say. They Are Lazy 90% Of The Time. They Talked To Me Like I Was Crap, One Actually Called The Cops On A Nurse When The Nurse Told Her That If She Didnt Do Her Job There Would Be Trouble (meaning A Write Up) She Told The Cops The Nurse Threatened Her. Lets Be Real Here If I Have To "do The Job Myself" Fine I Will Give Me 4 Patients And I Will, Will Save Some Money In The Long Run I Think. Please Dont Write Me Saying "iam A Cna And I Love My Patients" Blah Blah, You Most Likely Do, So Then I Am Not Talking About You. I Was An Cna And Would Never, But Then My Breeding Is Different. So To All The Cna's I Am The Nurse You Work Under My License!!!!!!! You Must Do What I Say As Long As Its In Your Scope Of Practice, If You Dont Like It Get The Heck Out Of My Patients Room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh I Feel Better

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Specializes in ER/AMS/OPD/UC.

Years ago when I was a CNA and running around doing all my work I passed on of my nurses who was sitting in the nurses station busy in a chart writing. (this was a nurse I knew well and had a great relationship with. In a huff I stopped in front of the entry way with linens in my arms and said sacrcasticly, "Is that what they taught you in nursing school...all that paperwork?"

As quick as can be she replied, "As a matter of fact yes!"

This is the nurse who encouraged me to go into nursing, and after a couple of years I did and now I am a nurse. I still see her around and she teases me..."Is that all they taught you in nursing school...paperwork!" Haha the joke is on me!!

Being a CNA is a hard job anyway you go about it, but like any other job, there are the good and the lazy. I personally think if the person is being lazy, then you need to call them on it. It makes it harder on you as a nurse but like anything else you have to follow up, document and confront. If confronting does not work...document that and just keep documenting, then give it to your superior.

Supervising someone who is incompetant or doesnt care is jepordizing your lisence.

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I have another rant about making up vitals. Last Saturday I had a baby with dehydration and gastroenteritis, on q4 vitals, running 130-150 heart rate (11 months old). I was off Sunday. Monday I am back and the aide from the previous day had charted the heart rate as 88 and 84. 84...for a baby? Obviously either made up or a serious problem that the nurse should have addressed, but apparently didn't. Thankfully she was fine. This is why I always do pediatric vitals myself.

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"As a CNA myself (for now) I see both sides of the fence, I see some nurses the DO sit and play (yes ...play) on the computer,I see other CNA's be lazy,and I do see the young new nurses (not to many)that don't want to get their hands dirty."

Yes, we did have a couple young nurses come in and think they knew more than the older nurses and wouldn't do "CNA work". They didn't last long there, because even the DON does it. I was shocked the first day I worked on the floor when she was there and we took a resident to the rest room. I fully expected to do the wiping and she put on a glove, grabbed a wipe, and she did the wiping of a messy BM while I helped hold the resident up.

I now work when (3rd shift) it is just the one nurse and I most the time. I respect her a lot because she doesn't feel above doing "CNA work". And she is always saying how CNA's don't get paid enough for the physically demanding jobs they do which is why she says she treats me like her equal. Most nights we do the exact same things other than she has to pass meds and chart more detailed information on her charting than I have to on mine. LOL! ;-)

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If I faked vital signs, I could not sleep at night! What if someone was really sick, and it was not discovered because of that?

I have the opposite problem, I take an inordinate amount of time getting my vitals because I am too careful. There must be a balance. And I do make mistakes. Sometimes I get different readings because of the difference in how each dynamap reads the vitals.

But how common is this, the faking of vitals I mean? I saw it in the nursing home because the na's sometimes just did not know how to listen for a manual bp, which was bad enough, but why would someone fake it when you can use a dynamap, easy as pie?

How can a person get the training and not know how to listen for a BP? It was one of the skills we had to do in CNA class. One time, both me and the nurse took BP on someone, and while the diastolic was the same, the systolic I got was higher than what the nurse got. Maybe I could hear it better.

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I notice you are 24? Well, I am 23 an a new RN..I have the same problem but only with a few of the aides. I think they feel threatened and jealous that the "new and young nurses" are telling them what to do...well most of the time it is just ridiculous to try to ask some of them to do something.

I took the issue to my nurse manager and she has done nothing about it...so what I do is if I need a BP, foley emptied, someone repositioned, whatever..I just do it myself. It might take you an hour to find them and then talk them into doing what it is you want..just do it yourself..atleast that is what I do. It usually is a task that will only take 2-3 minutes anyways.

mostly...there is no teamwork haha. I get a lot more done with the RN/LPN helping me than what meI could ever get from an aide. I guess in the end we are the liscenced personnel anyways.

Oh my!!! I currently work as a nurse's aide, and a nursing student, on a great floor with a great team (of course, with the exception of a small few). When the nurse I am working with wants something done, it gets done, and our nurses are available for us as needed too.

The one nurse we have on the floor that seems to have the attitude that she is better than the aides is the only one that EVERYONE has a problem with. All the great nurses to work with (and I plan to model myself after) treat the aides with respect and courtesy, and it is reciprocal, and we don't have problems with tasks not getting done.

Teamwork is just that, team WORK. If part of the team isn't working, usually once someone complains to the appropriate departments, others who have had the same problem will follow suit. If the facility doesn't correct the problem, maybe it's not the facility for you.

Or maybe I'm just lucky to work where I work :yeah:

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Oh god, I too have been "blessed" with difficult CNA's.

I agree with the poster that said, when I was an NA, "I wouldn't dream of talking smart to our team leader". I also wouldn't have dared smarting off the the nurse in charge of the pt. Back then, I always thought my job was to ASSIST THE NURSE.

Now I see NA's smarting off, refusing to do their work and being generally pissed off that we make more money than them. What the heck??!

I agree with all the posters that said you must be direct and nip it in the bud. You must confront, report and talk with the nurse manager about it. Of course the manager will only help if he/she has a backbone.

One particularily difficult issue I have come across is when the person that is doing the crap job is of a different race than you. I have had this problem several times. The above confronting, reporting and talking with nurse manager take sooo much longer to get results. And sometimes the lazybones NA is accusing people of racism anyway! Um, it's not racism if you are actually not doing your job and people are speaking up about it with documentation to boot. The organization is so overly cautious in this situation because they don't want to appear discriminatory. In the meantime, patient care is crap and your workload multiplies because you have to do your job and the NA's job.

This makes me so mad.:madface:

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i have been a CNA for 10 yrs and i too have seen my fair share of LAZY NURSES, and LAZY CNA'S..i have had a few bad experiences with nurses that come all the way down the hall to find me taking care of a patient just to say that MR so and so needs to use the bathroom...OMG,,take him yourself!!! we are there to help the nurse,i agree but come on,,if your not busy,you take the patient to the bathroom !!! dont chase me down the hall to tell me...i take care of 8 patients a day and i am very busy from beginning to end and it makes me mad to see a nurse sitting looking at an avon book or making plans for her childs birthday party at WORK !! when i have bells ringing from patients that need assistance,so its not always the CNA that slacks,,there are quite a few nurses that do also..:nono:

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Specializes in Nursing assistant.
How can a person get the training and not know how to listen for a BP? It was one of the skills we had to do in CNA class. One time, both me and the nurse took BP on someone, and while the diastolic was the same, the systolic I got was higher than what the nurse got. Maybe I could hear it better.

In LTC, some of the NAs come from different facilities, and just never learned. Many would ask me to do their vitals for them, some faked it.

The dirty little secret is this: there is alot of false documentation by some NAs, and often these are the same NAs who are considered the best in the nursing homes. They don't do it all, so they are done with their work sooner and are considered more efficient with their time management. Scary s....

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I am a CENA and i am in nursing school currently and i am also very passive and have a hard time with confrontation.... CENAs who act like the one in your situation give us all a bad rep and it makes me mad. Because i know my job is a "nurses assistant" and i am always happy to help with anything because it not only is a part of working as team it an excelent learning experience. If you have an aid who is not cooperating and not doing her job duties she is definetly in the wrong line of work. I know personally i do this because this is what i love and it is the most rewarding line of work!!! But i dont know if to keep on her is the answer because that will only make her not want to do the duties even more. But i wish you luck and i hope she doesnt ruin your opinion on CNAs because some of us are actually there for the right reasons!!!!!!

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I am a CENA and i am in nursing school currently and i am also very passive and have a hard time with confrontation.... CENAs who act like the one in your situation give us all a bad rep and it makes me mad. Because i know my job is a "nurses assistant" and i am always happy to help with anything because it not only is a part of working as team it an excelent learning experience. If you have an aid who is not cooperating and not doing her job duties she is definetly in the wrong line of work. I know personally i do this because this is what i love and it is the most rewarding line of work!!! But i dont know if to keep on her is the answer because that will only make her not want to do the duties even more. But i wish you luck and i hope she doesnt ruin your opinion on CNAs because some of us are actually there for the right reasons!!!!!!

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