doulos

I'm starting my CNA course in a month, and I have rough plans to eventually go on to be an RN (cart before the horse and all that, I know!) but I'm currently studying for the Pharmacy Tech test which I intend to take in the fall, and I'm not leaving out the possibility of doing any and all sorts of other medical-related stuff I can find. It's a whole new world with all sorts of neat stuff! I'm excited!

I can't say whether it's helpful or not - as I don't have my CNA yet (don't even start school for a month) - but I've got a BA and an MA and I'll be doing my CNA before getting my RN. And probably my CPhT too. And whatever else I can load on! Just because. So if it's NOT a good idea, at least you're not alone. :)

... and I just wanted to thank everyone on this forum for all of the useful information. Loads of good reading material here, and I appreciate it! I'll give y'all a quick rundown of how I got here, just because I feel like sharing a bit. :) I was once a college professor / English as a Second Language teacher. Did it for a while, enjoyed it well enough, but found it unsatisfying. It didn't really... move me. So I quit professing and went to work at an organization for homeless Veterans. One of the fellows in the program got kicked out for gambling, gambled all of his pension away, and tried killing himself. I spent a week going to visit him in the hospital, and I found that we both seemed to get something from the experience. Two weeks later another veteran was kicked out of the program, but he wound up drinking himself to death. I took it pretty badly - he had pleaded for help and the organization refused to help him and even went so far as to call the police to have him removed from the property - and I wound up quitting in a rather explosive episode with the administration. So when I started to think about What Now?, I realized I needed a position that ran on compassion and didn't have a built in mechanism to judge people as Right or Worthy or whatever. And I immediately remembered my week at the Catholic hospital and it became immediately clear! So I waited for a month - until today - and registered for a CNA course. I registered online, and even though the course was full the first 15 times I tried to register, eventually... something happened. And I was able to get a spot. I'm extremely pleased and excited and all the rest. Classes begin on the 9th of June. Huzzah! Anywho - thanks again to all the posters for giving me all the good reading material. I'll be lurking around for the next month or so until classes start. Though I suspect I'll have questions once the classes begin!