If you hate being a CNA will you hate being an RN too?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

A great nurse is one who will not ask her staff to do something that she/he is not willing to do themselves. So, if you don't like dealing with resident's now, then you may want to chose another career. Yes, there are many areas of nursing that one can go into, but you have to pay your dues 1st. Good Luck!

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It depends upon the area you end up specializing in. If you go into bedside nursing, most likely you will do a significant amount of assisting with ADLs, along with higher level clinical tasks and added responsibility. Do not think for one second that you will be free of your current tasks, even if you have CNAs to delegate to.

Even in an area like the ED, we do not completely escape assisting with ADLs. True, it makes up less of the bulk of our work than in rehab, for instance, but there are just as many rude and ungrateful patients and family members in the ED as there are anywhere, and they all need to go to the bathroom/want ice chips or extra blankets/demand to know when the doctor will come, etc. all at the same time, no matter what other life or death issue you might have on your plate.

I find that the key, for me, from the time I worked as a CNA up until now in my practice as an RN, is to learn to cultivate my ability to smooth things over. You are in a unique position to learn how to turn things around and use your charm and people skills to make them be polite and grateful, without them even realizing it.

Once you've paid your dues at the bedside, you can move into other areas that don't involve bedside care.

But yes, I think that if you hate being a CNA, you'll hate being an RN, too.

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Specializes in Mixed Level-1 ICU.

If you allow people to be rude to you, those who are likely to be rude will find you a willing volunteer.

Nip the rudeness in the bud the moment it happens...the rude are generally bullies/insecure and will cower when faced with strength.

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Specializes in LTC.
Rude, and ungrateful patients. Patients that take forever to get them dressed. Every 5 minutes they need something. Constant critiques over every little thing.

If these things bother you now you really need to do some soul searching because when you become a nurse it gets 10 times worse.

When I was a CNA I could call the nurse to deal with things when it became overwhelming, now I'm the nurse everyone runs to.

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

I'm kind of confused. Do you not enjoy doing ADLs all day or do you not enjoy the fact that patients can be dickwads or both?

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Not necessarily. it depends what aspects of the CNA job you don't like, and what aspects of an RN job really attract you. I never worked as a CNA but my first semester in nursing school, our clinicals were just CNA duties. I didn't like it but I didn't hate it. I just felt that it was boring to only do baths, beds, butts, vitals, etc. I'm the kind of person who needs to be challenged to be happy, and a CNA job wouldn't have provided me with a challenge. As a nurse, I do those tasks but it's a minimal part of my job, most of what I do IS more challenging. So I think I am someone who wouldn't have liked a CNA job but love my RN job.

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LOL. As if anything changes with the RN behind your name? I enjoyed being an aide - perhaps more than being a nurse. I was not so - stressed. The responsibility is much greater as an RN but people are people and any job dealing with the public is difficult if you can't enjoy people. Personally I find patient care to be the least stressful part of nursing for the most part. If I only did not have to chart and jump through hoops for regulations and insurance companies, yada yada yada. Just go from patient to patient doing my nursing thing. Ah, that would be heaven.

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I'm kind of confused. Do you not enjoy doing ADLs all day or do you not enjoy the fact that patients can be dickwads or both?

I like helping patients as long as things go quickly and smoothly. But those type of patients are far and few in between. Some of them purposely make your job more difficult. For instance, I had a patient who is disabled, and needs to be transferred with a hoyer lift. I got him completely dressed in his clothes only for him to tell me he has on the wrong pair of underwear--he instructed me to go into his dresser to get him a longer pair of underwear because he's cold. My face just dropped. He could have told me this before.

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.
I like helping patients as long as things go quickly and smoothly. But those type of patients are far and few in between. Some of them purposely make your job more difficult. For instance, I had a patient who is disabled, and needs to be transferred with a hoyer lift. I got him completely dressed in his clothes only for him to tell me he has on the wrong pair of underwear--he instructed me to go into his dresser to get him a longer pair of underwear because he's cold. My face just dropped. He could have told me this before.

Well, that's understandable. Have you perhaps thought that it isn't being a CNA that you don't necessarily like but the particular patient population that you work with? That's definitely a problem that can potentially be remedied - if you're a CNA or a RN.

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I like helping patients as long as things go quickly and smoothly. But those type of patients are far and few in between. Some of them purposely make your job more difficult. For instance, I had a patient who is disabled, and needs to be transferred with a hoyer lift. I got him completely dressed in his clothes only for him to tell me he has on the wrong pair of underwear--he instructed me to go into his dresser to get him a longer pair of underwear because he's cold. My face just dropped. He could have told me this before.

Yes, gotta love that kind of thing.

Sometimes the ones who have no control are the most controlling. You have to realize that. It is their way of exercising control over their environment. My mother who passed away in August became that way. I used to go home and cry because it was so hard to deal with sometimes. I was her primary caregiver and she got so hard to care for. It was like nothing was good enough and I tried so hard. But I realized that she was suffering terribly and that is why she became that way. So I cried and I coped and I am glad that I was able to deal with it and help her through her suffering.

Even with all the stress I miss her more than anything and though I am glad that she is no longer suffering, that does not help me cope with her loss. These people are still people with feelings. They need you. Try to back away from it and look at the person as one who is suffering and unfortunately taking it out on you. We have to be very strong in nursing. Very strong indeed to keep from screaming and abandoning those who need us the most. Many patients will not make you feel this way and that makes up for it, at least for me.

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Specializes in Geriatrics.
I like helping patients as long as things go quickly and smoothly. But those type of patients are far and few in between. Some of them purposely make your job more difficult. For instance, I had a patient who is disabled, and needs to be transferred with a hoyer lift. I got him completely dressed in his clothes only for him to tell me he has on the wrong pair of underwear--he instructed me to go into his dresser to get him a longer pair of underwear because he's cold. My face just dropped. He could have told me this before.

Did you ask what he wanted to wear before dressing him? I was a CNA, so, I know that many times we just do without considering the pt and what they want. Sure we do that because we have 11 more pts to get dressed in 30min, but we must think and consider their needs. Give choices when you can. I found that giving the pt a choice when possible saved me a lot of time and the pt felt like a person and not cattle.

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If you hate being a CNA will you hate being an RN too?

Yes.

I suggest your think about actuarial science instead.

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