Please help: What the different with CNA / LPN

After alot of tossing and turning, I was working on my pre-req's for ASN RN, I decided to go the LPN route. First of all I had pre-req's done under both type of degrees, the school I attend will allow the upper level credit for the LPN program. I decided to start with LPN because I would have to wait a whole year to submit to the ASN program. That's a year not taking anything and letting my Pell Grant go. I don't want to waste anything. so i decided to go ahead and take the plunge and do the LPN program. Later I can bridge into the RN program, but I will feel better prepared having been through the LPN program. I also like older people, I always have. So, to me it is not an imposition.

I am slated to hopefully start LPN school in May. I spent many years working as a CNA. In my humble opinion, For many reasons, I think it sholud be a requirement that anyone wishing to go to nursing school work as a CNA. As LPNs and RNs may be more medical educated than a CNA, wheather at a hospital or a nursing home, CNAs are and will always be the backbone of the whole operation. Working as a CNA will help you decide if the medical feild is right for you. And if you do decide to go on to nursing school, once you are LPN or RN, at some point you will be in charge of CNAs. You will have a respect for them and the hard work that they do. And you will never be to busy to help them change a dirty diaper. Their is nothing worse than a nurse who thinks they are to good to change a bedpan.

I started out as a Home Health Aide. It was a lot easier than being a CNA in a LTC or Hospital. I got my LPN and have been one for a long time now. I wish I would have gone straight into RN, and skipped LPN. But, I agree, being a CNA in a facility will give you a good grounding. I wish I had done that first.

A CNA is a Certified Nursing Assistant, they can take vitals, and in some facilities AccuChecks and some are trained to do more intense things. However, most of them are responsible for the nitty gritty work of dressing, cleaning, tolieting and transferring in and out of wheelchairs and bed.

A LPN in addition to doing CNA cares, also passes meds, charts, does trachs, IV's, GTubes, inserts/removes indwelling caths, calls doctors/families, orders and reads labs, does basic assessment (observation) and if needed defers to an RN. However most LPN's work totally independant of a RN. I may contact an RN once every other month or so, if I have a question, they technically supervise me.

I know there are scope of practice that differs for CNA, LPN and RN. But, basically in a normal facility, LPNs and RNs do much of the same work. It is in more advance care units that RN's have much more responsibility. As a LPN I choose to stay clear of those scenerios, as then RN's decided which pts you get. It kind of goes like this: RN "Who don't you want?, ok give it to the LPN" No, thanks did that and would rather take the whole load, the good and the bad, rather than having the whole truckload of the bad.