My first day of clinicals

[jwannab]

lol wow! you know you go through theory & everything is fun. Your learning and yadda, yadda, yadda and them boom, you hit the floor and your like ***?! lol because I am so focused on becoming a nurse I know what I have to do but at the same time i can see how people hate and drop out of the CNA program.

I don't wanna go into detail but lets just say wow! 13 more clinicals lets make the best of them. Good luck to all you new CNAs, stick it out regardless.

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

I have to say that I always make sure that the patient is FULLY COVERED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. That's one thing that I make sure that I do. I will admit I am guilty of throwing dirty linen on the floor. You will see there really is no other place to put it and I'd rather throw it on the floor than keep it on the fresh clean linen. I would also change my gloves in between patients because it's disgusting to use the same gloves with every patient.

[lorelei1973]

I have to say that I always make sure that the patient is FULLY COVERED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. That's one thing that I make sure that I do. I will admit I am guilty of throwing dirty linen on the floor. You will see there really is no other place to put it and I'd rather throw it on the floor than keep it on the fresh clean linen. I would also change my gloves in between patients because it's disgusting to use the same gloves with every patient.

I did get to witness one CNA who managed to avoid throwing dirty things on the floor. Her method was to tape two plastic standard trash bags to the foot of the bed of the patient before washing and gloving up. I imagine she kept the tape in her scrub pocket because I never knew where the tape was when she wasn't around. It was a brilliant technique: toss dirty clothes and linens in one, and toss soiled briefs, gloves, wipes in the other. One bag went in the soiled linen room, one in the garbage room.

The only problem I ever saw with her technique was that it took too long taping the bags. When I got into a room, I didn't feel like I had time to do anything but deal with the patient's immediate situation. So throwing things onto the floor began to make more sense, and seemed a little less passive aggressive until the day my instructor walked in just as I was tossing a gown onto the floor. I got the stinkeye and the speech but then she walked out. Housekeeping mops daily, right? ?

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

Where I work, housekeeping does not mop daily, because I have seen the same drips of juice and coffee on the floor in people's rooms more than one day in a row. So if you're throwing dirty linen on the floor, and then walking on it, you're tracking the germs all over the facility.

That said, I throw things on the floor too. I HATE it when people drape gross washcloths on the bedrail or the bedside table- and then they never wipe it down with alcohol! At least drape them on the edge of the trash can! I think the proper way is to put a towel down at the end of the bed and put the dirty linens on that. But the whole pile ends up falling off the bed... and onto the floor. So what I usually do is put a clean pad on the floor and throw everything on top of that. Then you are not contaminating the floor with dirty linen. The pad gets contaminated by the floor, but it goes directly into the laundry. I parked a laundry cart outside someone's room one time and got yelled at for that.