ShyGecko

At the hospital I worked at it was very easy to get overtime. At one point I was working 5 12hr shifts per week, by choice.

I never wore my watch, I just kept it in my pocket. It didn't matter what hand I held it in when taking pulse, because I worked on an infant/toddler floor of a peds hospital and we took pulse with the stethoscope. I don't really have any experience taking pulse on adults with my watch, so I couldn't tell you there. I would probably agree and say wear it on the hand you take pulse with, so you can hold and watch the clock at the same time.

quote: "we are expected to be neat and clean, wear underwear (i can't believe we have to tell adults this), no thongs (again i can't believe we have to tell adult women this). we can pretty much wear whatever color shoes." "as for this, if they tried to tell me what kind of underwear to wear, i would have a serious problem. personally i think my nude colored thongs look better than the panty lines i see from the white granny panties some of my co-workers wear (and i am an adult woman)" i would seriously have a problem with this, and would either quit or not accept the position. i absolutely cannot wear regular underwear under pants. to me, it feels extremely uncomfortable. i wear nude color thongs that do not cut in on the sides and ride low so they never show above my waistline. i agree that my underwear looks much better than the panty lines you see on most nurses, especially the old school ones that still always wear white pants and white granny panties (yes, i worked with one of these at my last position...it looked terrible!!) plus,i think that regular underwear shows above the waistline much more than thongs do, especially when you bend over. yes, i am also an adult woman.

They are considered restraints at our hospital, and we have to have a new order from the physician every 24 hours in order to keep using them. We only use them if absolutely necessary, though.

At the hospital that I work at you can normally only work 12 hour shifts. You can only work an 8 hour shift if you pick up an extra shift and don't want to work overtime. Most everyone wants the overtime pay, so people rarely ever work 8 hour shifts.

I work in a Children's hospital on a floor that has mostly infants, and we do all rectal temps on children under 6 months. *shrug* I haven't heard anything about them being discouraged. I have used a temporal thermometer in the past, and bought one to use when I worked in childcare, and it worked great. There is a learning curve and it take some getting used to how to work it, but once you learn they are great. I accidentally left mine at the home where I used to nanny, and I still kick myself over that.

At our facility, the ONLY people that can delegate to CNA's are charge nurses and management. Nurses are not our supervisors, and are not allowed to delegate to us at all. This is said up front to everyone in general orientation, directly from the mouths of high management.

This is exactly how it is at our facility also. I am a CNA, and the only person at my work that can tell me what to do is the charge nurse and the management. The nurses are not in charge of us or above us in anyway, and are actually just as equally responsible for the CNA duties as we are! Nurses are expected as much as we are to do vitals, and feed babies, and change diapers, and everything else. I'm sorry, but I would NOT take kindly to someone calling me their "subordinate". I am as much friends with the nurses (and charge nurses) as I am with my fellow CNA's, and we all treat each other with the same level of respect. Besides our job duties and our level of education, to each person at my facility we are all considered equal as humans. We are told this from the front from the high management of the hospital, and are expected to act that way. Treating each other with anything less than respect is highly frowned upon.

I work at a hospital, and I get paid weekend diff. It is $1.30 per hour on top of the $1.62/hr night diff that I already make for working nights.

I'm not sure about Texas, but here in Nebraska you only have to be 16 to become a CNA.

I didn't start getting replies from hospitals in Omaha until I added my American Heart Association CPR training for healthcare providers on my resume. I know that at least Methodist and Children's hospital want that specific one, they don't want people with Red Cross certification anymore. I also didn't get a response from Children's until I decided to apply for nights...since they ONLY hire new CNA's on nights (there is a waiting list with current employess for the day positions).

It really depends on the hospital. I live and work in Omaha, also, and I know at least at Children's Hospital it doesn't matter if you are certified as a phlebotomist or not, they won't let you draw blood if you are working as a CNA (or Child Care Parner, as they call it here). I know, I asked b/c I was thinking about doing the same thing. I would find out from the hospital(s) you are thinking about applying at, b/c I wouldn't want to waste the time and money to take a course that I wouldn't be able to use anyway. You know?

I work in a Children's Hospital on a floor with children ages newborn to 3 years on average (we get the occasional spill-over from the floors with older children), and I normally have around 8 patients. Occasionally I have as many as 12 if someone calls in sick, or as little as 4-6 on the weekends when we typically have low patients counts.

At our hospital, the majority of us work 12 hour shifts, and anything 24 hours and above is considered full time, with full benefits. So yes, working three 12 hour shifts is full time with benefits. I get paid hourly as a CNA, and I'm pretty sure the nurses do also.

We HAVE to work every other of the 6 major holidays (memorial day, 4th of july, labor day, thanksgiving, christmas, and new years), and we are automatically scheduled for them. We work one set one year, and then switch to work the other three the next year. New Years is considered the last holiday of the year, so that people aren't stuck working two holidays that are so close together in a row when they switch (working mem day, labor day, and xmas, then switching to new years, 4th of july, and thanksgiving), which is nice, I think. Again, we are automatically scheduled for them, but you are welcome to find someone to work it for you or swap shifts. That happens a lot at my work. People will often swap thanksgiving for xmas, or xmas for new years and vice versa.