Looking for advice for becoming CNA in Minnesota

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Hi.

I plan on going to LSC and taking their AA degree program in Nursing for my RN. I'm currently taking the pretechincial classes.

I need to get my CNA and I am wondering if anyone has any advice.

I am thinking of taking the phlebotomy certification at the college at the same time, for many reasons:

to learn something new

to make my resume look more full

to help me obtain a job

to give me experience that will help as i take the classes to become an RN

I was just wondering if anyone was employed at a hospital here in Duluth MN and how they obtained a job there.

If you think that the phlebotomy course will help for jobs in a hospital? or a job period as a CNA.

I'm really not sure what a CNA can actually do legally, if i will be able to utilize the phlebotomy certificate.

is there any other certification or type of job i should start working on that would make me more hireable at a hospital.

I'm going to be quiting a full time job to do this and i would like to research this and do it right.

Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated.

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Hello fellow Minnesotan! Love the Duluth area. We always vacation on the north shore.

I was a phlebotomist turned nurse and I do believe it was a combination of that and my high honors what got me my hospital job, but it has been dicey. There are A LOT of nurses graduating in MN with their BSN and they almost always get the job. If you are single and free to move about. I would highly suggest getting into a BSN program right from the start. I had no choice but to go the LPN-ADN route because I have a family and we could not move. If I could have chosen I would have found a BSN program.

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Hi GrundeRN

thank you for replying to my post.

I am not single. There is a BSN program here at St. Solastica but the tuition is much higher, and since when i went to school 10 years ago, I wasn't as dedicated and received mostly C's and few B's. I don't think i would be accepted in to their program anytime soon. Where Lake Superior College goes by a waiting list, first on the list, first in the program. They do require you have certain grades in your pre-technical courses. I'm taking them now and so far I have received A's.

I think I will do the ADN program and become an RN and immediately after get a job and enroll to get my BSN.

You said you were a phlebotomist, what certification did you have to do that work? Lake Superior college offers a certificate after taking certain classes and clinicals. I was surfing the job listings and found a few phelbotomy openings but they required ASCP or equivalent phlebotomy certification or certification eligibility. I was told by the school that i would have to be employed as a phlebotomist for a year before i could get the certification.

As a CNA in minnesota, do you know if they are allowed to draw blood, would the phlebotomy certificate will be a good thing to have?

I'm hoping the certification will help me get a job at the local hospitals. Is there any certifications that you would recommend that might help me get into a hospital?

thanks for your help.

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I became a phlebotomist in 2001 and at that time the hospital that hired me did not ask for a certification, they had on the job training, if you can believe that, I had zero phleb experience when I started. It's hard to say what would help you more as far as getting into a hospital. I guess it would depend on the hospital. I know the LPN experience in a nursing home counted more toward someone having nursing experience, whereas phlebotomy offers no nursing experience. I guess you would have to ask the nursing homes if they would allow CNA's to draw blood. I wouldnt know that. Some hospitals may be more helpful in transitioning a laboratory employee into a nursing one, where mine didn't. I guess you should for sure ask yourself if seeking these extra certifications will take away from your grades. If you need good grades to move on, maybe the focus should remain there.

One certification that is quite easy to get is ACLS. I think it helped that I graduated with that.

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Wow hired with zero experience. Wish I could find that job :)

thank you so much for your advice.

I am doing well in my classes and will have them finished at the end of this year. This spring i will not have any other pretechnical classes to take, so i can take nothing or pursue something. I figured phlebotomy cert might help, for instance maybe making me more comfortable with doing IV's and sticking people that way when i am in nursing school I will have a leg up on the others in my class. The only other option would be to take the non nursing classes that are required for the degree.

I was just taking a look at the diffrence in price in the two colleges i talked about earlier. and it costs $15,000 a semester at the place that offers a BSN where the community college is more like $3k. I wouldn't be able to aford the BSN right now, I wouldn't even be able to get a loan to cover it.

from what you are saying i think it might be better to get a job in nursing than phlebotomy, because it will count more for nursing experience. I really don't see many job openings for phlebotomy, there was one at St lukes but it was a job that was causal, like an add on to your regular duties.

How was your experience at the long term care facility? It seems like everyone thinks it would be horriable to work there. Of course thats were the largest amount of job openings are.

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My experience in a nursing home was short and not a very good one, but that doesn't mean they all are. Wow $15,000. I get why you can't do that!

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