Let me start off by saying that this post is not intended to offend/insult anyone! I want to hear peoples opinions and point of views on the matter, so PLEASE, do not have my head.
So, I have been reading quite a few post from nursing students who are now questioning if nursing is for them. Those questions are not based on their grades, its based on their experiences in the clinical sites. Some are grossed out by what they have seen, others claim they didn't think it would be like that, and more than a few don't think they are cut out for It, and do not have the patience to deal with "difficult" patients.
So this is my question; should nurses be required to be a CNA (for at least 3 months) before they enter the field of nursing?
Please remember, this is only a question not a recommendation in anyway. I am really curious because I have seen people spend all that money only to drop out because once exposed to the reality of nursing they find out that its not something they can handle. Also, it would prevent them from wasting their money, and or preventing other prospective students from getting into the program who would really love the nursing profession.
I do not think that working as a CNA should be a requirement for nurses. That said, in my day, nearly all nurses were trained in the hospital and we started taking care of patients almost immediately as student nurses where you applied the theory you learned in class and practiced what was learned in clinical. By the time you finished, you could work anywhere in the hospital. The diploma schools are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, and in today's world they are simply no longer practical and in some ways they were not ethnical (student nurses were free labor for the hospital after all). However, some hospitals have paid student nurses who have additional responsibilities than a CNA, often called nurse techs or nursing assistants. It should not be a requirement, but its greatly beneficial. When I was still working in critical care, many of our nursing students in these positions were hired as RNs on the unit and had a shorter orientation from being able to see and do so many things under the direction of experienced nurses. I don't think they made a lot of money, but something is better than nothing. Experience is truly the best teacher and the more clinical experience one can get while in school, the better.
I don't think it should be required. I think it would help you get to see if bedside nursing is for you and get you ready for the fast pace of nursing if you have a hospital CNA job. You could soak up a lot of info and it would might make clinicals easier. You could also get experience as an intern or extern so someone doesn't need to be a CNA to become a nurse. There are other options.
I did work briefly as a CNA but had no training other than nursing clinicals. My first clinical instructor was really using her job to recruit nursing students as CNAs for her business on the side. I walked into an understaffed nursing home and was shown by other CNA's there how not to care for patients, shortcuts such as cleaning and changing a person only once a shift and using soap perfume to cover the scent. I don't know why I even went back after the first experience! The second time I worked there was no running water, only a basin to watch your hands in due to a plumbing problem and I had to take care of dying comatose aids patient. It was scary I don't know why I ever went back. My last shift I was so overwhelmed and behind and tried to walk off the job as I couldn't keep up with what was expected. The manager wouldn't let me leave and I remember crying hysterically unable to breathe when I finally drove home. That was the last time I worked as a CNA! I don't know how the CNA's do it working in a nursing home without neglecting patients! Seems impossible to me.
So while being a CNA could help with nursing, it could also backfire and get someone to quit who might be a good nurse! Because of my bad experience I never worked as a CNA after that, but didn't quit nursing because I needed a decent paying job. I didn't want to be a failure and I didn't want to go back to being a secretary with poverty wages! I was successful, graduated on the Dean's list and found a job right away, but being a nurse has not been easy. In the beginning I had so much performance anxiety and fears of making a mistake, now it is the stress of constant alarms and the stupid computer charting & med pass that makes everything a time consuming hassle.
I know that if I was required to work as a CNA to attend nursing school, I never would have attempted nursing school. Not because I think I am "above" the role of a CNA, it's just that I never had the intention of going to nursing school to begin with. I originally was in a biochemistry program at a 4 year school and I felt as though I wasn't going anywhere, so I switched to nursing at the end of my freshman year. I thought "hey, I'll try nursing, there's a lot of nurses in my family!" My school has a good BSN program so I applied at the beginning of my freshman spring semester and by the end of that semester I was accepted because I had a near perfect GPA of 3.9. It may have been naive on my part to just jump into nursing school with no prior knowledge of what I was getting into, but it was the best impulsive decision I have ever made. I don't work as a nurse yet (I graduate with my BSN in May!) but I am so excited to begin my career. If I was required to work as a CNA for 3 months or however many months I know I wouldn't have done it.
It's a risk you take when attending ANY college that you may or may not like the course work or requirements. If you don't think it's for you a month, 2 months, or a semester in, then by all means change your major or drop out until you can change your major the following semester. This is why it's important to research things like this before you decide on a major especially an expensive one like nursing (I spent over 1200 my first semester between books, clinical uniforms and equipment.) It's not the school's place to mandate CNA certification to make sure that nursing is for you before you start the program. That's your responsibility as a student. (even though this is the complete opposite of what I did, just do as I say and not as I do haha ).
Also, if there is an influx of potential nursing students all becoming CNA's and looking for jobs as CNA's after they get certified to gain the mandatory experience, won't the job market become so saturated that many won't be able to find jobs or it will be extremely difficult to find jobs to fulfill the requirement anyway? Just a thought.
There's a ASN school in my area that only accepts students with CNA licenses from certified schools. I considered it, and looked into the process. It would have taken me 3 months and $1500 to get the CNA. All that money and time for a license I'd never use. I considered it a $1500 application fee, and nixed that school. I got me a BSN instead. :)
We don't expect MD's to be PA's or nurses first. We don't expect lawyers to start as paralegals. Why does nursing have this obsession with starting at the bottom? I'm a BSN-only, and have encountered an attitude from those who were LPN's or CNA's or even ASN's first. I'm not sorry I catapulted over the ladder instead of climbing it. You could have, too.
I don't need to work as a CNA to know their job is demanding, exhausting, and unappreciated. I see it every day as I watch them work. My hospital is short PCTs, and we do float nurses into PCT jobs. I'm dreading the day I'm expected to do that job.
Specializes in Cath/EP lab, CCU, Cardiac stepdown.
I don't think that it is necessary. As a cna, you are not doing the duties of a nurse, thus you really aren't going to be like "oh this is what nursing is about? I don't like it". Cna does not cover the entire spectrum of the delights and horrors of nursing.
I can see how it can help with patient interaction, but really that's not all there is to nursing. What about all our assessment skills, therapeutic communications and techniques, medical skills and administration, charting, etc. Being a cna does not give you the insight of it, because they don't do it. All I'm saying is that if you're going to be a cna to see if you like those then you might as well just read about it in a text book, at least that would be shorter and less expensive.
Also there have been cnas who became nurses and didn't like it. Why? I'm gonna get ire for this but it's because they thought it was easy and the nurse was just giving meds or listening to heart and lungs for so much more pay and then they only realize how hard nursing is when they're doing it. Now I'm not saying it's every cna but it does happen.
Which is why it is not necessary to be a cn to be a rn. People do not know how hard nursing is until they do nursing themselves.
There's a ASN school in my area that only accepts students with CNA licenses from certified schools. I considered it, and looked into the process. It would have taken me 3 months and $1500 to get the CNA. All that money and time for a license I'd never use. I considered it a $1500 application fee, and nixed that school. I got me a BSN instead. :)
We don't expect MD's to be PA's or nurses first. We don't expect lawyers to start as paralegals. Why does nursing have this obsession with starting at the bottom? I'm a BSN-only, and have encountered an attitude from those who were LPN's or CNA's or even ASN's first. I'm not sorry I catapulted over the ladder instead of climbing it. You could have, too.
I don't need to work as a CNA to know their job is demanding, exhausting, and unappreciated. I see it every day as I watch them work. My hospital is short PCTs, and we do float nurses into PCT jobs. I'm dreading the day I'm expected to do that job.
Wow. My CNA certification as the pre-req for my school will cost $500.
I 100% think that this should be a requirement. It's astounding how many nurses I've worked with that feel they're "too good" to do "CNA work". By this I mean answering lights, helping taking patients to the bathroom, even just getting water for a patient who asks (of course I mean when the CNA is busy with another patient or if there are several lights going off). Instead of just helping out, the nurse will hunt down the CNA and say, "You need to do this when you're done."
I think it really helps clarify what it is a nurse actually does and what the working conditions are really like. I know quite a few young woman who did this and decided they would not be going to nursing school after all and focused on another direction. Nursing school does not prepare you for what the actual workplace is like or what will be expected of you job wise.
I 100% think that this should be a requirement. It's astounding how many nurses I've worked with that feel they're "too good" to do "CNA work". By this I mean answering lights, helping taking patients to the bathroom, even just getting water for a patient who asks (of course I mean when the CNA is busy with another patient or if there are several lights going off). Instead of just helping out, the nurse will hunt down the CNA and say, "You need to do this when you're done."
I've met many more nurses who used to be CNA's who become RN's to escape "CNA duties" than I have fresh RN's who think they are above CNA duties.
Specializes in Cath/EP lab, CCU, Cardiac stepdown.
I 100% think that this should be a requirement. It's astounding how many nurses I've worked with that feel they're "too good" to do "CNA work". By this I mean answering lights, helping taking patients to the bathroom, even just getting water for a patient who asks (of course I mean when the CNA is busy with another patient or if there are several lights going off). Instead of just helping out, the nurse will hunt down the CNA and say, "You need to do this when you're done."
I disagree, my school had it engrained in our minds that we are never too good to do cna work. We did adls, answered call bells, changed beds, assisted with toileting and meals. So frankly, it really doesn't take being a cna to encourage future nurses to do those duties.
And another point is that it's likely that even if it is a requirement, a person who doesn't want to do cna work in the first place Will still not do it when they become an rn. They'll do it when it's a requirement in the beginning but once they're an rn it's probable that they'll stop. My belief is that those who refuse to do it are just lazy and no amount of cna experience Will change that, they'll just carry that laziness over to when they're rns.
).
HazelLPN, LPN
492 Posts
I do not think that working as a CNA should be a requirement for nurses. That said, in my day, nearly all nurses were trained in the hospital and we started taking care of patients almost immediately as student nurses where you applied the theory you learned in class and practiced what was learned in clinical. By the time you finished, you could work anywhere in the hospital. The diploma schools are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, and in today's world they are simply no longer practical and in some ways they were not ethnical (student nurses were free labor for the hospital after all). However, some hospitals have paid student nurses who have additional responsibilities than a CNA, often called nurse techs or nursing assistants. It should not be a requirement, but its greatly beneficial. When I was still working in critical care, many of our nursing students in these positions were hired as RNs on the unit and had a shorter orientation from being able to see and do so many things under the direction of experienced nurses. I don't think they made a lot of money, but something is better than nothing. Experience is truly the best teacher and the more clinical experience one can get while in school, the better.