I have a quandary I need help to think through. I just finished up my first semester of nursing school. I have a break in between my semesters and I am in the process of getting my CNA license( which can't happen until transcripts are released and then I go take my test and get my license). In the meantime A few of my instructors have mentioned the local Phlebotomy course offered( every Saturday for a few months) as a potential course I could take and beef up my resume when applying for jobs in the summer while I finish nursing school.
MY question is: is this something worth pursuing? a phlebotomy license? I live in California btw and I really want to get employed in a hospital setting while I finish up school( not working is not an option for me). Fellow nurses and nursing students and potential nurses help me out here, is this a good avenue to pursue? Thank you all!
If you could do both, that would REALLY make you a competitive new grad. You will survive even if you don't do either one but I highly recommend you do at least one and if it could only be one, I would say CNA based on my personal experiences.
I worked as a CNA for a little while before becoming an RN. Working as a CNA will give you a good insight into how nursing and patient care works. You will learn basic care that you won't spend too much time learning when you're an RN. For example, you will learn how to position and transfer patients safety and you will get plenty of practice. When I started as an nurse, I had zero problems going in and changing and re-positioning patients myself when I had a few moments. That helped my patients get care in a more timely fashion and it helped alleviate the workload on my CNAs. The biggest thing that I learned that helped me as an RN was to appreciate absolutely everything that my CNAs do. They would see how much I would help and in turn, we would work better as a team. That sounds like it should be obvious but many new RNs that I've worked with believed that CNAs were their personal assistants and it did not play out well.
Phlebotomy will teach you how to draw blood, in what order, what tubes to use, and how to handle samples after drawing them. I had no experience when I became an RN. I learned on the job and I was fine. At my facility, the secretaries prepared all of the materials and there was almost always a phlebotomist that could be called. There is also always a guide somewhere on the unit on how to handle samples. The benefit to having this before being an RN is that it is one less skill to teach you and you could possibly be a resource to other RNs for drawing blood, however, employers don't expect this from their new grads.
Of course both certifications would make you a more desirable candidate when you go to apply as an RN, but if you could only do one, working as a CNA will give you tangible skills as well as soft skills on how to work better in a team providing nursing and patient care. Good luck!
Why so astonished? You don't think, we as RNs, have opinions that are based on reality? For one, as a student nurse, the OP can spend her free time (if that's possible for a student) to follow other RNs and learn to do thorough and speedy assessments. In her last semester, she will have a few patients of her own, doing quick assessments before giving meds is an art form in itself. Many RNs don't even bother or do a half orifice one due to the lack of time. So, why not take this opportunity to improve what she needs anyway? Maybe listen to a few extra heart sounds if she can find patients with the conditions. As a student nurse she can start an IV, learn more assessment techniques, do some wound care, or whatever the RN is comfortable with showing her or having her do.
CNAs are great and a great resource for nurses. They make the lives of any nurse easier. This student nurse isn't trying to be a CNA. She is on the road to be a RN at the end of her tunnel. She should go forward and learn as much as she can, as a future RN. Clinicals are pretty short as is. How many IVs can she learn to do in the meantime? Maybe watch, clean, or change an ostomy? Or enteral feeding? How many student nurses get to see or do all of these during clinicals? Review competencies or study for future ones that she might need to check off? She can even check patency of the lines, see if patients understand care plans, go over them with patients. Many patients don't know their care plans, etc. anyway. What CNA skill can she do that will prepare her as a RN? Her scope of practice, even as a student nurse, is quite a lot more than the CNA can do. Have time, strengthen your future nursing skills.
What does this have to do with anything lol? OP is asking what job she should take that will improve her nursing skills as well as make her a better candidate to get a job after nursing school. Not working isn't an option for her.
Obviously she isn't trying to become a CNA for the rest of her life. But being a CNA will make her a better student nurse and give her a leg up on her classmates when she resumes nursing school in the spring. IMO, the strongest nursing classmates I had in my school were those with CNA experience.
Shadowing other nurses after your first semester might sounds cool at first but there is only so much you can learn by just watching instead of doing. Not to mention OP won't be getting paid.
Why so astonished? You don't think, we as RNs, have opinions that are based on reality? For one, as a student nurse, the OP can spend her free time (if that's possible for a student) to follow other RNs and learn to do thorough and speedy assessments. In her last semester, she will have a few patients of her own, doing quick assessments before giving meds is an art form in itself. Many RNs don't even bother or do a half orifice one due to the lack of time. So, why not take this opportunity to improve what she needs anyway? Maybe listen to a few extra heart sounds if she can find patients with the conditions. As a student nurse she can start an IV, learn more assessment techniques, do some wound care, or whatever the RN is comfortable with showing her or having her do.
CNAs are great and a great resource for nurses. They make the lives of any nurse easier. This student nurse isn't trying to be a CNA. She is on the road to be a RN at the end of her tunnel. She should go forward and learn as much as she can, as a future RN. Clinicals are pretty short as is. How many IVs can she learn to do in the meantime? Maybe watch, clean, or change an ostomy? Or enteral feeding? How many student nurses get to see or do all of these during clinicals? Review competencies or study for future ones that she might need to check off? She can even check patency of the lines, see if patients understand care plans, go over them with patients. Many patients don't know their care plans, etc. anyway. What CNA skill can she do that will prepare her as a RN? Her scope of practice, even as a student nurse, is quite a lot more than the CNA can do. Have time, strengthen your future nursing skills.
CNA skills are nursing skills. If you start out as a nursing student with no CNA background, you're going to have to learn to do both. Just because you're an RN doesn't mean that you can skip over learning how to do all of the CNA activities, too.
I agree that clinical hours are short, and that students should maximize their clinical time if they focus on 'nursing-specific' tasks that CNAs can't perform. However, if students begin clinicals without any experience, they're going to have to use some of their limited time learning to do things like baths and checking gluocses. Students with a CNA background actually get to spend more time focusing on the higher-level nursing activities since they can skip over the basics and move right on to the harder stuff. I spent valuable clinical hours stressing over how to properly give a bed bath or check a glucose; if I'd been a CNA, I could have used that time to do things like learning to give meds, hang tube feeds, do ostomy care, start IVs etc.
Maybe this isn't your intention, but it seems like you're implying that nurses don't need to learn how to do things that a CNA does. They do, and they should still be helping out their CNAs in the performance of these tasks.
In addition, CNAs arguably have a better opportunity to learn from real RNs. If you as a CNA build a rapport with your coworkers and demonstrate that you want to learn, they're going to be more likely to pull you aside so you can watch/help while they do things like place foleys, change ostomies, etc. In addition to clinical time, they have extra work hours where they can shadow and potentially assist with nursing skills. I almost think of them as bonus clinical hours where you're still getting exposure to nursing tasks, but but with the added benefit of getting paid and building your resume.
Maybe this isn't your intention, but it seems like you're implying that nurses don't need to learn how to do things that a CNA does. They do, and they should still be helping out their CNAs in the performance of these tasks.
I would also add that many times there IS NO CNA, and the more comfortable/efficiant an RN becomes doing these tasks (baths, other ADLs, etc.).
Whoa, I did not mean for this post to bring up so many conflicting opinions. I was just asking other nurse minds for some advice.
To clarify: I already have my hours and etc for my CNA license( that comes with completing my first semester of nursing school). I am not taking any extra classes etc. I am just getting it certified once my final grades are posted.
as for phlebotomy: it's a short class to take in between this break I have and I thought it would be a good opportunity while I have a mini break.
I am fully invested in nursing school and learning all I can in my clinicals. Our program weaves in NClex prep/testing every quarter so I am getting as much exposure as I can right now.
My main question was if phlebotomy is a good course to take right now; if it would make me a more viable candidate or teach me things to help me be a better RN.
I did not mean for this post to turn into a choose one or the other debate. (CNA's are lifesavers in my experience)
I appreciate all of your responses and advice! thank you everyone so much!
I am so glad there are passionate nurses and nursing students willing to help me out. It's hard when no one in your family or friends is going through this process because they don't quite understand. Thank you all~
However, if students begin clinicals without any experience, they're going to have to use some of their limited time learning to do things like baths and checking gluocses.
Not to sound like a jerk, but outside of knowing the right way for any exams or a skill test for your certification, if you don't already know how to do these basic things by adult life, you're probably a danger in nursing. I can understand needing to watch a 2 minute video on checking a blood sugar if you've never done it before, and obviously learning how to use the equipment where you're working / doing clinical, but these are incredibly basic skills that millions of people do for themselves every single day.
Sorry, but if you have to learn to put soap on someone, then rinse it off, and don't wipe their back with what you just wiped their crack with (forget the rationale behind it, just knowing "that's gross" is enough to stop pretty much everyone from ever doing that) you're not going to grasp the more complex stuff that comes with nursing.
Being a CNA did help me with my first semester and made most of it just a review for me, but after that, it doesn't do much. I'm with tons of people in clinical who never worked as an aide before, and you'd never know, because it's common sense and they're not idiots.
Not to sound like a jerk, but outside of knowing the right way for any exams or a skill test for your certification, if you don't already know how to do these basic things by adult life, you're probably a danger in nursing.
But it isn't just orifice-wiping and finger sticks. It's body mechanics and the proper way to move a whole other human, to ambulate them safely, feeding someone who cannot physically feed themselves, etc.
The people in my clinical groups who have the biggest issues are the ones that have never been in a medical environment before because they're overwhelmed and scared they're going to do something wrong.
But it isn't just orifice-wiping and finger sticks. It's body mechanics and the proper way to move a whole other human, to ambulate them safely, feeding someone who cannot physically feed themselves, etc.
The people in my clinical groups who have the biggest issues are the ones that have never been in a medical environment before because they're overwhelmed and scared they're going to do something wrong.
EVERY job I've ever had, you have to learn body mechanics and how to lift the right way. Moving another human is about a minute of training, combined with if you don't know how to move that person, get a second person. And feeding someone, really? We feed ourselves every day, do the same thing for the patient. It's not rocket surgery. Once your realize that feeding a patient is just putting a normal amount of food in their mouth and making sure they don't choke, it's not exactly a "skill." Literally every mother in existence figured out how to do this, usually completely on their own.
The people in your clinical group who are struggling aren't struggling because they've never been a CNA, they're struggling because they just don't have the sense to do the same thing that they've been doing for themselves every day of their lives, and nerves, because they're overcomplicating simple, basic human care. If you can't clean a patient, you probably don't bathe yourself. Body mechanics... Name 1 job that doesn't drill proper lifting into your head. There's no difference between how to lift as a nurse and how to lift as someone stocking shelves in a store. The only people that this should be new information for are people who have never worked a day in their lives.
It's so much common sense that it really doesn't translate much into nursing beyond your fundamentals class. From that second semester of nursing and all the way up to a doctorate, you either have the common sense to do what a CNA does or you don't. This isn't something that can't be taught. It's basically "don't be an idiot." The challenge is time, but that's a skill any job can teach you.
If you can't clean a patient, you probably don't bathe yourself.
...
There's no difference between how to lift as a nurse and how to lift as someone stocking shelves in a store.
Prior to nursing, I've never had to bathe myself, or anyone else, using a bucket and a washcloth, laying horizontally in a bed.
I've also never been concerned that dropping a box of product could result in significant bodily injury to the product. I worked in a pet store as a teenager, and as an adult I can tell you that lifting a 50lb bag of Puppy Chow is very different than making sure a 235lb adult man s/p hip replacement and AMS doesn't fall and crack his skull as he walks over to the toilet.
And if you're in psych, the body mechanics of stocking shelves are nothing compared to the body mechanics of restraining a physically violent psychotic patient, screaming that the sprinkler system on the unit is a secret camera for the government to spy on him. True story, by the way. That was a long night.
You can't compare working with inanimate objects with working with humans.
Lol, @tonyl1234 if you bathe yourself like you're giving a bed bath to an immobile patient, I think you might be doing it wrong...
But in all seriousness, I hear you, but I think that these skills take time to become comfortable with. For instance, nowadays I could don sterile gloves and set up a sterile field in my sleep. When I was a student, I was still really stressed about getting it just right in my skills lab. It isn't 'hard' to do, but there are a handful of particular steps that have to be done in a specific order. You get better, faster, and less awkward at doing them with practice. Just like with giving a bed bath. Or setting up a glucometer. Or repositioning a 300 lb patient. No, it isn't rocket science, but you become faster and more proficient when you practice all of the time, as you do when you're a CNA. Plus, that way, you don't waste precious hours of nursing school clinicals doing that stuff, and you can move on to the juicier, more interesting tasks.
And feeding someone, really? We feed ourselves every day, do the same thing for the patient.
I am hoping you're a Russian troll....but if not you're giving me a good chuckle.
Have you ever fed a 65 year old dementia patient who doesn't want to eat, resists and turns away every time you put the spoon near his mouth? I would love to have you come with me when I babysit my 14 year old special needs grandson. He exhibits the same behavior. And his anti seizure medicine is mixed in with some of his food!
I REALLY can use your expertise in getting him to eat. Honestly if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Thanks in advance.
nursex23, BSN, RN
122 Posts
If you could do both, that would REALLY make you a competitive new grad. You will survive even if you don't do either one but I highly recommend you do at least one and if it could only be one, I would say CNA based on my personal experiences.
I worked as a CNA for a little while before becoming an RN. Working as a CNA will give you a good insight into how nursing and patient care works. You will learn basic care that you won't spend too much time learning when you're an RN. For example, you will learn how to position and transfer patients safety and you will get plenty of practice. When I started as an nurse, I had zero problems going in and changing and re-positioning patients myself when I had a few moments. That helped my patients get care in a more timely fashion and it helped alleviate the workload on my CNAs. The biggest thing that I learned that helped me as an RN was to appreciate absolutely everything that my CNAs do. They would see how much I would help and in turn, we would work better as a team. That sounds like it should be obvious but many new RNs that I've worked with believed that CNAs were their personal assistants and it did not play out well.
Phlebotomy will teach you how to draw blood, in what order, what tubes to use, and how to handle samples after drawing them. I had no experience when I became an RN. I learned on the job and I was fine. At my facility, the secretaries prepared all of the materials and there was almost always a phlebotomist that could be called. There is also always a guide somewhere on the unit on how to handle samples. The benefit to having this before being an RN is that it is one less skill to teach you and you could possibly be a resource to other RNs for drawing blood, however, employers don't expect this from their new grads.
Of course both certifications would make you a more desirable candidate when you go to apply as an RN, but if you could only do one, working as a CNA will give you tangible skills as well as soft skills on how to work better in a team providing nursing and patient care. Good luck!