I hate my CNA job!

Nursing Students CNA/MA

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I am currently in Nursing school and am a CNA/PCA at a hospital in a Medical-Surgical unit. I absolutely hate my job. I only work about once a week, but I worry all week about my upcoming shift. Closer to the day I work, I start to feel physically sick and nauseous about going to work. My worry consumes my life, as it is all I can think about. However, I have only been working here for 4 months, so I am not eligible to switch to a different unit (I have to work there for 7 months before switching). I am working at one of the best hospitals in the state, and want to work as an RN at this facility. I just don't know what to do about hating my job. I can have anywhere from 7-13 patients, doing all daily cares for them. Will I end up disliking nursing all together? Has anybody else felt this way?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

If you are that obsessed with thoughts of a one-day-a-week job, you might want to think about getting some help. That is extreme and abnormal.

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This may sound odd, but maybe if you picked up more hours?.....I know alot of people that amplify their anxiety because too much time actually passes between shifts. Getting into a more constant mode may help establish better routine, and ease your anxiety.....even if you hate your job......

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Consider working more hours. Repetition is key.

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I mostly like to work night shift but found that the before work anxiety increased exponentially before night shift. When I wake up in the morning to go to a day shift job, I don't have time to develop anxiety. Agree with the PP, try to get more hours. And hang in there. You don't want to ruin your chance for a good nursing job when you finish school.

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Specializes in Corrections, Surgical.

What exactly do you hate about it? is it the patient load or something else?

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What exactly do you hate about it? is it the patient load or something else?

Usually the most anxiety-producing things about the job for me include: my patient load, and the fear of multiple call lights going off at once without any help.

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Let's see were do I begin..... CNA was the worst job experience I have ever had! I wanted to become a cna to break into the nursing field just to get a feel for it. I kid you not nurses treat the cna like a pile of crap. The nurses were very lazy and obnoxious! They act as if patient care wasn't apart of there clinicals or care plan, they would call cna just for everything, including giving patients water! The nurses would go in the room making their rounds see what the patient needs then come out the room and go tell a cna the patient needs changing or to go to the bathroom! They have no compassion to help assists the cna notice cna stands for nurse assistant meaning to assist them when they have to change a patient or what ever the patient need ... but they act as if they have no comprehension of that! I was a cna for about a year in a half. Until I went back to college and got my college degree in dentistry! I TRULY COMMEND THOSE CNA BECAUSE I KNOW THEY DO MORE AND BEYOND THAN THE NURSE WILL EVER DO IN PATIENT CARE ! Being that I have first hand experiences, yeah nurses saves lives, but so do cna; they don't just push meds and chart. They go over and beyond for the patients! Cna is the job that made me become the person I am today! And now I see the same nurses children and the nurses themselves come to my dentistry. My words to the cna that are dreading their jobs hang in their until you find your career. you don't have to suffer from anxiety and stress and heavy works loads alone when there are nurses who are just as qualified as you to take a patient to the bathroom! If no one else appreciates you rest assure a dentist like me is appreciative I was once in those cna shoes

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Specializes in Peds,Geri-Psych,Acute Care Rehab.

Obviously you had bad nurses, we have jobs to (usually 30 patients to do meds for x 3 times in one shift) Diabetics, IVs ect, charting. But I firmly believe the day you think you are too good to get someone off the commode or change a brief its time to not be a nurse anymore. Sorry you had such a bad experience :(

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I completely understand what you're saying; but do you think it's physically and mentally possible for a nurse aide to make rounds within an hour or do you not care that they are still making rounds beyond their hour on all those patients, do you not bare in mind that some are needy than others and some are physically slower than others? Getting someone up out of bad and to the toilet is time consuming especially when there's not enough help or should I say help but not enough teamwork on the floor. There are some nurse excellent nurses but I can only speak for me during those time when body lifts were not that commom. I appreciate nurses but I have so much respect for the cna's only from my experiences and from what I've seen presently.

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I felt the same way working in a nursing home, which had a mixed in population for rehab, and a LOT of incontinent total assist patients. I worked nights, and felt lucky if I got time to take a drink myself.

Even our "great" nurses would spend at least an hour or two every shift (just what I have seen) talking to each other. One nurse would straight up say she's not a CNA anymore and she's not going to do incontinence care.

One other nurse would have us take vital signs for everyone (on night shift) on his floor, so that "everyone would get touched." Basically (later this I figured out) meaning he isn't assessing any of them.

The nurses would claim that they spent 7 of their 8 hour shifts just doing charting. We had a medpass person (one nurse) who did the narcotics each shift and two nurses handled the rest. The facility I think had 110 beds.

We would be staffed at 19:1 ratio,and I could NOT finish incontinence rounding in an hour, simply because incontinence care takes a bit longer than 3 minutes!!! On some patients, it takes 10-12 minutes!

The night I had 15 patients and they were ALL incontinent, and like 6 were total assist, and of those, two had a trach, and two more were VERY BARIATRIC - OVER 300 LBS!! No help from the jerk nurses.

I don't care if my former employer sees this.

I quit that job and went to an ALF and the staffing was not much better and the nurse wasn't any better.

So they had me there on the memory unit which had 17 patients (omg one was bedbound wtf apparently that's illegal however idk if that patient is even still there and they seem to pass their inspections okay... So I'm kinda new at all this too and not sure what's legal or not I guess... ) And we had one other CNA and yet we were always getting in trouble because when people were eating, if someone needed the bathroom, one of us had to take them, and that left one in the dining room, and nobody in the hallway, to guard against wanderers. Ugh. There's the nurse though the third person, just not even taking any accountability?? Because she's in the dining room area giving meds while I feed someone, and then the cute little lady wanders into the hallway and sets off the buzzer of proximity. They all wore ankle bracelets that let us know when they got close to the door.

I hated both places. I DO understand what you're saying. It's one thing to LOVE caring for patients, and a whole other deal when your facility makes you seem like a monster even though you're totally understaffed, and working your tail off BECAUSE YOU LOVE THOSE PEOPLE AND CARE ABOUT THEIR WELL BEING!! UGH! It is very very difficult. You're supposed to get 8 people up and dressed and cleaned up, basically a top half bed bath and incontinence care, plus dress them and transfer them, almost entirely alone, and it's like oh here do all this in 8 minutes or less. NOT GONNA HAPPEN..Ugh ugh ugh.

If I ever run a nursing home, I will push for better staffing!!! No doubt!!

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