chirawr

To be honest, the minimum wage is determined by examining if that salary is feasible to live upon. So technically all jobs should be able to help you survive as long as you're working full time. That being said, obviously that is just an average, some people have more needs than others. Also CNA wages boarder the minimum wage line pretty snugly. I would say being a CNA should be a transitional phase, not a permanent abode for anyone. You want to aim for something higher. A comfortable living minimum wage in my opinion is around the 40k mark. That is once again the minimum so I recommend everyone should strive to make more than that in order to truly live a comfortable life.

Hi everyone! This is my first post here! I just had an experience I never expected to have. And because of it I'm not sure if I'm meant for this line of work. I'm a nursing student in his first semester. I just finished my first fundamentals class and during the last day of clinical my instructor offered a chance for those interested to shadow a wound care nurse and I decided why not and tagged along. I saw a patient that had a would vacuum thing on a large area on her lower leg below the knee that stretched to almost her ankle and another right on the underside that was a DVT or something (not a vacuum though). Seeing the would care nurse replace the foam vacuum while hearing the patients screams was agonizing and I almost felt like puking and feeling like someone sucked all the air out of the room and had a hard time breathing and my vision temporarily blacked out and I staggered behind a wall wanting to fall down while the rest of my classmates were fascinated and excited to see all of it. I waited painfully until the nurse was done and quickly exited the room not wanting anyone to see my reaction as I felt ashamed not being able to handle being there. My finger tips and hands felt all tingly and numb even after exiting the room, I was really shaken by the whole experience and I was confused as to why even though I didn't have any issues while dissecting dead bodies in anatomy and physiology prior to being in the nursing program so why now? Emotionally I kept feeling the patients pain while hearing her. I'd probably still have the same reaction since I haven't done anything to cope with that sort of thing. But this is making me reconsider whether I'd actually make it as a nurse. I know I probably wouldn't see much of this unless I specifically sought to become a wound care nurse or something like that but I know that usually you have to rotate around in different departments and I'm wondering if being in med surg or emergency/trauma, critical/intensive care, you have to see gruesome stuff like that a lot. Did any of you go through something similar and does it eventually become easier to see or easier to be desensitized to such things with more exposure?