HELP! I DON"T WANT TO GO THROUGH CNA first...

akrn70 · Feb 5, 2007

Hi, I see that you are a nursing student and think that this is why you may have choosen the wording that you did for your post. If I think back to nursing school, I'm sure I as well as my classmates thought the same thing. I can remember going to my first clinical in a LTC facility and giving my first shower. The resident rolled out clean, I on the other hand had shnit on the leg of my white scrubs! UGH!!! After thinking I would die, we all laughed about it and moved on. It was no big deal. I was never a CNA, I went right to RN school. Was it a smart move? It can be debated both ways. I think the girls and guys that were CNA's (or had some form of other medical backgroung) moved through some of their skills with much more ease. I can also remember a friend who had to wear a mask and suck on a halls cough drop while changing patients. I guess what I'm getting at is we all need to learn to do the basic skills before we can move on to the advanced ones. Learn them and have fun with them. Even when you are an RN there will be times that you need to help out your CNA's. I do it as much as I can. I think if you forget the patient care, you loosse a big part of why we want to become nurses.

Just do what you need to do to get where you want to be abd have fun along the way!

Good luck!

Cattitude · Feb 5, 2007

thank you lauralassie! i guess i just envisioned a prettier picture. (one that does involve caring for people, young and old) but not so much as changing briefs all day long! thank you for the kind words and understanding my honesty.

maybe you should also appreciate others honesty , even when it's not exactly what you want to hear :clown: .

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[color=#483d8b]no, nursing is not always a pretty picture as you envision (your words). many times it's downright ugly. but it's rewarding and tiresome and heartwarming and heartbreaking and joyful and sad. it's a mixture of a whole lot of things, not just the good stuff.

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[color=#483d8b]i know you think people here may have been harsh on you, but go back and re-read your first post. it was very short and to the point and a tad offensive to nursing, cna's and pt's too! that's why the responses were the way they were.

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Lacie, BSN, RN · Feb 5, 2007

maybe you should also appreciate others honesty , even when it's not exactly what you want to hear .
[color=#483d8b]no, nursing is not always a pretty picture as you envision (your words). many times it's downright ugly. but it's rewarding and tiresome and heartwarming and heartbreaking and joyful and sad. it's a mixture of a whole lot of things, not just the good stuff.
[color=#483d8b]i know you think people here may have been harsh on you, but go back and re-read your first post. it was very short and to the point and a tad offensive to nursing, cna's and pt's too! that's why the responses were the way they were.

think cas said it best of all!

lauralassie · Feb 5, 2007

Caz....Well said, happy to hear from you again concerning this.:)

TazziRN, RN · Feb 5, 2007

maybe you should also appreciate others honesty , even when it's not exactly what you want to hear .
[color=#483d8b]
[color=#483d8b]no, nursing is not always a pretty picture as you envision (your words). many times it's downright ugly. but it's rewarding and tiresome and heartwarming and heartbreaking and joyful and sad. it's a mixture of a whole lot of things, not just the good stuff.
[color=#483d8b]
[color=#483d8b]i know you think people here may have been harsh on you, but go back and re-read your first post. it was very short and to the point and a tad offensive to nursing, cna's and pt's too! that's why the responses were the way they were.
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:yeahthat: :yeahthat: :yeahthat:

it's one thing to not enjoy cleaning people up, i don't think anyone actually enjoys the "dirty" tasks. it's another, however, to blatanly complain that you don't want to be a cna because you don't want to do the dirty tasks. for one thing, cnas do much more than that , they are an indispensable part of the nursing team. for another, it ain't just the cnas who do that. i agree that you need to re-read your original post carefully, maybe then you'll understand why you got the responses that you did.

qaqueen · Feb 5, 2007

I am waiting to get into the RN program. I became a CNA 7 months ago. Although CNA is not what I want to do long term, I can say that this has been the best 7 months I have had at work in YEARS. Yep, it's sometimes icky, people are not always nice, but the joy of helping others outweighs all that.

I truly believe that nurses who were CNAs first, appreciate the CNAs who work for them more. They understand that CNAs are there to support them and do the "menial" tasks so they have more time for bedside nursing and the ungodly amounts of paperwork.

Any nurse who would spend 15 minutes (or more) looking for a CNA to give a pt a bedpan (or to change the pt) should consider a more hands off position. When you walk away from a patient in need, you are doing harm.

Chaoticdreams33, MSN, RN · Feb 5, 2007

WOW, HOT TOPIC!!!

Here's what I've got to say: for me, when I started Nursing school, the thought of having to do these "horrifying tasks" like cleaning people up was indeed very scary. But I made it thorough my first year, and then I started my nursing assistant job, and now I clean people up all day/night long. It's not so bad. Everyone has their thing that they hate, be it sputum, blood, vomit, or poop. But maybe you'll find that it's not so bad after all. My job as a nursing assistant has been extremely beneficial for me in clinical and I'm sure it will show in my career as a RN starting this summer. Like others have said, poo is part of life, so cleaning up patient's poo is part of the nurses job. Give CNA class a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

ann945n, RN · Feb 5, 2007

Not to sounds harsh but you will encounter way worse then adult diapers as a nursing student or nurse at that. I get coughed on spit up on and spill stuff on me all the time. You cant avoid it the good part about adult depends is that i think you are less likely to get dirty then someone who is vomiting or coughing up stuff. Dont worry you get used to it and get good at jumping out of the way!

JaxiaKiley · Feb 5, 2007

I never thought about sucking on a Halls -- thanks for that tip! It will come in handy when I start clinicals this semester.

RNHawaii34 · Feb 5, 2007

not to sounds harsh but you will encounter way worse then adult diapers as a nursing student or nurse at that. i get coughed on spit up on and spill stuff on me all the time. you cant avoid it the good part about adult depends is that i think you are less likely to get dirty then someone who is vomiting or coughing up stuff. dont worry you get used to it and get good at jumping out of the way!

oh i agree with the poster above, this is very true !!! but honestly, there are many things that a nursing student, or a new nurse should worry about other than cleaning poop....trust me, this is definitely not the worse part....once you get over the "poop cleaning, nonstop diaper changing", there are other things you will discover :chuckle i know this because i was a nurse assistant for 10 years before becoming an rn.

anne74 · Feb 5, 2007

Honestly, poop was the scariest thing for me in nursing school. I'm very sensitive to smells and for some reason poop really does it for me.

One day as a student nurse on a med/surg floor, almost all of my patients were incontinent. I must have cleaned up more than a dozen code browns. Finally, I helped a 90-yr-old woman to her bedside commode, not knowing that someone had just given her an enema. She released all over me - all down my pants, watch band, the works. I was freaked! But, I realized that I made it through and faced my biggest fear.

Now as a nurse, I still hate poop and I still gag a lot. But, I've learned to deal with it.

The moral of the story is, just because you don't like poop doesn't mean you can't be a good nurse. I get annoyed when people say you shouldn't be a nurse if you have issues with bad smells, etc. You just develop coping mechanisms for it. Plus, when you become a nurse, you're so busy all you think about is getting it cleaned up quickly so you can move on to the next task!

cuddlesrose · Feb 6, 2007

I am sorry that you feel that way. With out cna's where would you be? Wiping back sides and giving showers. I am a cna and in a health core program right now. I am so tired of hearing "its not my job, I did not go to school for that, or they don't pay me enough money to clean those people up." How sad that you feel this way, just remember that what you dish out you will recieve. I wish that all states required you to be a cna before you applied to a health core program. I pity you, your attitude is not a compasionate one at all. :nono: