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

Nurses General Nursing

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This is really not to put any profession down but I've dreamed of being a nurse for soooo long, now only to discover that before entering my LVN program, I have to get the CNA title first! I am horrified of having to do some of the tasks described! This is not whaat I dreamed of all these years, I was thinking more along the lines of changing newborn diapers, not old folk diapers! CAN ANYONE BRING ANY CONSOLATION?

: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.

Well I never said I didn't understand why people commented as thay did. I just feel my honesty was misunderstood! It is possible to be an outstanding nurse without making LTC a living, fine if you find it rewarding, remember different strokes for different folks... it just doesn't seem like it's for me! Sure I will be a better nurse for it in the long run, but I cannot see myself having to change "briefs" ok, not diapers, all day long. I feel my best contribution as a nurse would be in another department. Thanks to all the responses, no matter how harsh. It has opened my eyes, but I'd still rather be in L&D or somewhere else... sorry for the BRUTAL honesty if it offended anyone!

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If you are horrified at the thought of assisting an incontinent patient with skin care, you need to either deal with it, or rethink your career. I started out as a CNA and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. As a RN, I wipe butts on a daily basis--what better way to assess my patient's skin? CNA skills are quite valuable, and you will be a better nurse for having them! I work in a hospital on a telemetry floor, not LTC. As for L&D, you will still be dealing with incontinence.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

I was in a nursing program that offered to take either the CNA class or a basic nursing skills class without becoming a CNA. I took the basic nursing skills class and wished I would have become a CNA beforehand. I am now a new RN and could've have used the experience. The tasks that the CNA's complete daily are invaluable, and yes, as a nurse I help to clean up patients as well:-) Good luck!

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Your school may want you to be a CNA first, so you know that you can handle the basic care. When I took CNA class at my community college, I spoke with the head of the nursing program and she told me that two weeks into the nursing program last year, they had 3 people drop out because they didnt relize that they would have to touch people. They wanted to do research and refused to clean poo, so they dropped out, they were unable to use the alternates because it was already two weeks in and the new students would be to far behind. This is a school that has only 40 spots a year with over 700 people applying, so this year being a CNA is required.

Like you I thought that I wanted to go into L&D, but after working in LTC as a CNA, I think that I might want to go into hospice. Working as a CNA is more that just changing attends, your helping someone who is very uncomfortable feel just a little better, almost all my residents who are coherant are very thankful and will tell me that. While you might not think that LTC is for you, just by having the experiance as a CNA, you might change your mind as to what you really want to do, and you might discover that being a CNA is as bad as you think it is.

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Well I never said I didn't understand why people commented as thay did. I just feel my honesty was misunderstood! It is possible to be an outstanding nurse without making LTC a living, fine if you find it rewarding, remember different strokes for different folks... it just doesn't seem like it's for me! Sure I will be a better nurse for it in the long run, but I cannot see myself having to change "briefs" ok, not diapers, all day long. I feel my best contribution as a nurse would be in another department. Thanks to all the responses, no matter how harsh. It has opened my eyes, but I'd still rather be in L&D or somewhere else... sorry for the BRUTAL honesty if it offended anyone!

Hun, what do you think many women in labor are doing as they are pushing? They are pooping and may not even know it! Guess who wipes that poop? The nurse!

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I agree with the posts saying that the experience is very important. I was a CNA for about 12 years before I went to nursing school and it helped sooo much!! There were so many people just out of high school that never worked as an aid and I got such a chuckle out of them cuz they didnt know how to place a bed pan for a patient.. or wrestled with the ted socks for 10 minutes! As a nurse you arent always going to have your aid handy and your job is to take care of your patient so when you do have to place a bed pan or wipe poo you can do it the right way! That would be sooo embarassing for you if you put the bed pan backwards (ive seen it happen). You work as a CNA while you are going through school...you will learn so much! I have also learned that what you think you want to do right now probably will change as you go on with your education. There were so many students just like you that wanted to do the baby thing but when they witnessed a stillbirth, and babies that arent healthy.. babies in drug withdrawal they totally changed their mind! Give yourself some time and take every opportunity there is to experience the things that will make you a better nurse.

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i was looking around the other posts in other sections and i came across a post from dorselm that kind of went like this:

i dislike...

1. inappreciative pts who can pick up the phone, dial a number and talk but can't spread a packet of mustard on their sandwich. or who have you come in their room at 9 to bathe them and they tell you to come back later when they are ready.

2. being short staffed and having to take on even more work

3. co-workers who hang in clicks

4. having to smell poop all day

5 having to clean poop all day

6. poop getting on me

7 listening to phlegm in someones throat who has a trach

lifting or transporting patients.

8 not having team work

i love.....

working with some of the patients. they are so adorable and even though you can't always understand what you're saying, they are so sweet and appreciative of you helping them...

******so it seems like not everyone disagrees******

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I guess some people just don't understand. Poopy is ok, as long as it's not 12 or so pts. all day, 7 days a week, as a career!

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I guess some people just don't understand. Poopy is ok, as long as it's not 12 or so pts. all day, 7 days a week, as a career!

Lookingforward, let me try....it's not that the people who have come down hard on you don't understand. It's that it appears that you don't understand just how much the gross stuff like diapers/briefs, etc is entrenched in everyday nursing care.

You don't have to work in a LTCF with 12 patients 7 days a week to experience ALOT of unpleasant work. While "poop" has been the focus here, you're going to have to trust that there's an awful lot of bodily fluids that can be equally disgusting, and it's oftentimes the nurse, not the CNA, that attends to that.

I work in med-surg and some shifts I don't have a single incontinent patient. Other times, 5 out of 7 are. Even when they aren't incontinent, there's the joy of emptying and washing out bedpans and potty buckets (for the healthy, NOT incontinent pts) and obtaining stool samples for various reasons--this means digging a plastic spoon into the pan or brief and smearing it on slides, or pouring it into cups. And that's just the poop ;)

I have friends who work in every unit of the hospital, and ALL OF THEM have this work to do. L&D is hardly the exception; actually, they have alot of gross stuff to clean up....personally, after doing a clinical rotation in OB, if I NEVER have to take off another woman's peri-pad to examine her lochia, up close and personal, it'd be too soon. But doing the work originally, well, it IS a learning experience.

NO ONE is saying you must love this aspect of the work, or that you must WANT it to become the greatest time consumer of your workweek. But the point you need to understand is that if you find that doing the CNA work (the pre-req you need for school) gets to you TOO much, you may find that nursing really ISN'T for you. Don't take that to mean that you couldn't be a super nurse and hate this aspect of patient care. But DO understand that if you don't get past being truly offended by it, you won't be able to survive in bedside nursing no matter WHAT field you choose. There just isn't a "clean" job for a nurse anywhere in the hospital, unless you're administration! And getting used to poop and puke and phlegm and....stuff early on will HELP you to not be thrown off by it later, when you really truly need to dig around in that stuff for assessment purposes.

I'm not trying to get you worked up, but I hope you get that the reasons for having you do the CNA work now really ARE valid....and may just affect how you handle yourself later.

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Specializes in home health.

please remember that what a cna does is

basic nursing care

it is very good experience

no one shovels poop on 12 pts 7 days a week

there are many things about nursing i do not like..i can handle the poop, but vomit and stuff from the lungs is my tough spot to deal with. i don't like icu/er - i'm not an adrenaline junkie. a clinic might be neat to try i don't like working most holidays.

i love working with the elderly, and with end of life care and eventually i want to work hospice, i don't like administrators who have no common sense and not having supplies handy.

my point is there are many facets of nursing, and cleaning up a person (while maintaining their dignity) is one facet.

i was a cna for a few years and as a lpn/lvn (depending on which state i happen to be working in) have come to depend on the cnas (pronounced see nahs lol) they are my eyes and ears down the hall, and i can't tell you how many times a cna has come to me and said "i don't know what's going on, but there is something wrong with so-and-so. they have saved lives by being observant.

very important addition to health care

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Looking forward,as ppl & as nurses,we all agree that poop smells and cleaning it up (without looking at the person behind it) can suck...but it is something that is BASIC NURSING CARE! Sure,some of us don't want to clean up spills for the rest of our careers but the beauty of nursing is that you can always advance/change/expand into different areas once one gets dull. Each one of us has something that we dislike doing/or dealing with in daily care-i'm not fond of sputum and my best mate HATES false teeth! What i'm saying is that most of us here in this forum, appreciate your honesty at the dislike of certain aspects of nursing-even if the was it was written was a tad extreme-but perhaps when something as fundamental as cleaning up poop & "other gross spills" is SOOO scary maybe its time to ask some tough questions-WHY NURSING?? I hope that you can grow, whether it is in nursing or another profession. I believe that each person moving into the nursing profession should ask themselves why?? WHY HERE?? WHY THIS?? Most ppl will say "it's because i want to help ppl". But there are many other professions that do that... so WHY NURSING??

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Specializes in Peds,, Home Health, some geriatrics.

I think nurses that were cna's first make the BEST nurses. I enjoyed being a CNA except for the physical labor because you really had time to get to know the patient.

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