Miwila

I've never heard of LTC work being an impediment to gaining hospital employment. If a CNA in LTC finds he or she can't get hired at a hospital, then they ought to go to their community college and take classes in EKG and Phlebotomy. Upgrade your skills and you'll be more marketable.

If it's any consolation, these abrasive teachers kind of sound like a lot of the nurses you'll have to work under. So maybe they're just trying to get you prepared for the "real world".

I'm always wary of private training centers. The teachers and teaching methods in some of these places are just shoddy and unpolished.

Can I ask what kind of institution you're taking this CNA class at? Is it a Community College, the Red Cross, or a private training center?

Either class is probably of equal value. As an above poster said, if you want to be a PCT in a hospital, take a PCT class, and if you want to make yourself marketable as an EKG tech or a Phlebotomist, take classes that specify in those areas. Especially if you live in an area where you can get all of this training affordably at a CC - go for it. Just try to avoid these places that take your money and don't teach you anything. Although if you plan on being a nurse maybe you don't want to spend so much time taking extra vocational classes.

Thanks for the youtube tip. I would never have thought of that.

Exactly how much do you need to know chem to be sucessful in this course? My school doesn't require chem as a pre-req either but it is "highly recommended". If A&P is already challenging, I'm nervous about enrolling without first taking a course that is "highly recommended".

I appreciate all this insight. I recently took a biology class and it was as if the harder I studied the worse I did on tests. I felt overwhelmed with foreign information. In retrospect, I figure I had a professor who literally expected her students to devote 3 hours a day if not more to studying. My studying 10 hours a week might have seemed like a lot to me, but it wasn't enough. I just surfed amazon and saw I could buy a few A&P study guides really cheap. Hopefully I could use along them with what little extra private tutoring I'm able to afford, to navigate through this course. At any rate I feel a little more confident now...although a little more wary as well.

I'm planning on taking A&P 1 next semester and I am wondering what makes it so difficult to pass? I already knew it was going to be challenging, but I've been thinking it was more along the lines of heavy memorization. However, reading this forum and especially hearing about how many students drop out of this class after the first couple of tests, I am getting really, really nervous. If anyone could enlighten me as to what seems to make this class so difficult to pass I would really appreciate it.

Sorry to hear that. I've always been curious about what makes some R.N.'s "tick", what goes on in their heads that they treat aides like that. Aides are there to help; you would think nurses could be a little more supportive.

Oh dear. Disillusioned after 3 weeks huh?

Anything is believable when it comes to Everest. Once they get that government money for placing your body in one of their classes, they don't care if you learn or not. They don't care if you're eventually able to find a job or not. I wonder if one of the reasons the government is finally starting to scrutinize these places is because too many graduates are defaulting on their student loans because they can't find jobs (not because of the economy, because of this second-rate "education").

i know; she annoys me every time.

Not so much for the worse. For too long for-profits have been charging extremely high tuition for substandard education. By the time students realize they've been scammed, it's too late. It's about time the government started to look at these "schools" more closely.

http://www.cnatips.com/classes/nursing-assistant-fl.php the page i sent gives a list of all the schools in broward county that offer cna. if you scroll all the way to the bottom, it gives you the option of looking up schools in miami. it seems to me most of these places don't have web pages so you'd have to call for info. vo-tech in pembroke pines has a web page, but they don't give a price. their class is six weeks long, meeting four days a week.