ER Tech with CNA License

[jiimmmyyyy]

Hello everybody! I am 19 years old and I hope to become a Registered Nurse in the future. I recently just took a "break" (until summer) from my CNA job. I felt that the job was not my cup of tea, however, I did enjoy interacting with the patients. Anyways, I read that an individual can become an ER Tech with a CNA License. I was wondering, how does one do so if the scope of practice is completely different? If I apply for an ER Tech job at a hospital, will they give me a couple days of training? I did some research about it and I even read that hospitals prefer ER Techs to have prior CNA training, even though they do not have any experience in the emergency room. Thank you for your time and help!

[Bobmo88]

It all depends on which ER you work. My ER requires a phlebotomy certification and CNA or EMT is preferred per the job description but HR didn't even wait for my EMT certification to be verified through my background check. Phlebotomy and 12 lead EKGs are two of my main duties but I was taught how to do EKGs on the job. Scope of practice and qualifications seem to differ from place to place. I would recommend looking at job postings for your local ERs and seeing what the qualifications are and perhaps inquiring about scope of practice to see what exactly you would be doing.

[NICUmiiki, DNP, NP]

It depends on the hospital and its requirements.

I just became an ER Tech. My hospital will only hire EMTs and nursing students as ER Techs and we have a pretty wide scope. We do splints, insert folies, start IVs, draw blood, compressions, gopher, stocking, CNA duties.

The other hospitals will hire CNAs but have a more limited scope. At the hospital I do clinicals, the ER techs only do CNA stuff, stock, and gopher.