samsam22

I work in Southern California. I make 14.50 per hour base pay on a telemetry floor. I make 1.45 extra on weekends. I am not only a CNA though I also have my Tele Tech.... I know the CNA's on the other med surg floors make around 13 per hour.

In my hospital I am a CNA and soon I will train in the hospital to be a PCT. This means I will rotate between CNA work, Telemetry (watching heart monitors), and unit secretary. It is the same as CNA but more training and a bit higher pay. I would say go for PCT, especially if you want a hospital job over a skilled nursing or LTC job.

I am in california and I started with no experience on med-surg at $11.00 a hour and shift diff was $1.50 for night shift. After one year I got 50 cents more and made 11.50 after shift diff was $13.00 a hour.

I have been a CNA for 2 years on med-surg (since I was 17 hehe) and I have about one semester to go before I get into the ADN program. :yeah:I am looking forward to a life long career in nursing it is the only work I know! :heartbeat

There is always plenty of shifts for me to pick up at the hospital, and they are 12 hour shifts. The only problem is that we do get called off a lot, it is different at every hospital but im almost certain you wont get called off as much at a long term care.

I work in san diego at a very small general hospital I started at $12.50 a hour with no experience, I just got a raise to $13 a hour. Other girls I work with as CNA's make 14-18 a hour but they were hired with previous experience. I feel content with my pay as a student. :)

I work in a hospital and a lady bled out through her rectum and there was a giant pool of blood and stool.... the smell was the worst thing EVER and it lingered in the halls all night. I'm glad we saved her though because she coded

I work in a hospital here in california and i started with no experience i make 12.50 a hour... ive been working there for 4 months now and i hope i get a raise soon O.o

dont worrie you will get a job it just takes time! try to work at some home health agencys for a while at first, thats what i did then one day a local hospital called me about a resume i submitted like 3 months previous! so i went and got the job so try and find something for now and then all of a sudden everywhere could be calling you offering jobs! ya just gotta wait it out, ive never known a CNA that never got hired anywhere, BUT most do have trouble at first. just dont worrie

ive always just done my first and last name with CNA so i would do: Ann Smith CNA that is usually what they want... ive never really done a comma you can always just ask how they want it at work :nuke:

you can do it! i just got a job on the med-surg floor, and yeah its a bit different than the ER... but like you i only had about 6 months of home health experience and thats all i had the first 2 nights i was really slow at doing things and took me a while to learn everything, the lady i was supposed to shadow didnt even show up! I was pretty much on my own...now i know how to do almost everything and i really enjoy working in the hospital, its the 11p-7am shift. so if i can do it, i am almost sure you can do it, just ask questions and most of the time people are so helpful! i hope you get the job and if you do take it!!!!

thanks everyone, i dont want to work LTC becuase i already work in a hospital as a CNA and i wanna stick with it! LTC is fine but hospital is what im used to and i dont think they even hire LVNS so i think ill just go straight for RN

Its weird at my company anyone who works at the SNF across the street is called a CNA. and thats what it is on their badges. I am a CNA but since i work in the acute care my title says "Nurses Aide" not CNA like theirs does. *shrug* makes no sense to me really, when i applied for the postion any CNAs working in a hospital are known as nurses aide, and any over in SNF are the CNA's... all i know is were doing the same type of work lol, and i have no idea why i would be known as a "Nurses Aide" instead of "CNA" maybe its just a weird difference they wanted on the badges

I live in southern california and after reading a lot of these threads is it even worth going after the lvn-rn bridge? I wanted to do this and thought it would be good to work as a LVN while working on getting into the RN program. should i just spend time doing RN pre-reqs and keep appling to the RN program over and over? I wanted to do the LVN 3 semester program then try and bridge to the RN while working as a LVN, but it seems like there is no jobs for LVNs in southern california. Also the way it sounds it is impossible to even get into a bridge program as a LVN. So maybe i should give up on the bridge progam and just focus on RN prereqs, anyone have any advice on what is best to do?

Hi there im in the same boat as you. I am 18 years old and just got a job working night shifts 11p-7am per diem at a hospital, they are going to start me off working about 24 hours a week... and i can work more if i choose to. I am also a full time student just finishing up all my LVN prereqs i take about 12 units a semester. I think that if you worked about 24 hours instead of 32 you would be able to handle this better, becuase if i can do it you can, and i still have freetime. Youre manager is probably a RN as well and if you explain to them that being a CNA isnt your career choice and that being a RN is they should understand that school comes first, ask for one shift less, they cannot fire you for asking. If they give it to you then thats great, if not.. then go apply to a different hospital, you have experience now and getting another hospital job would be easy! So i think you should at least ask, and if she doesnt give it to you start looking for a new job that is part time, since being a CNA is not your career choice you really gotta focus on school

honestly most places you go it will be hard to find much higher pay...especially starting off... when i applied to places the jobs i worked at and the ones i was offered it was around that much...i dont have much experience myself i finished my program in may both home health agencys i worked at was 9 dollars a hour... the nursing home i was offered a job was 10.50 a hour... the hospital i now work at is 12.50 a hour... and the hospice home health agency i was offered a job at was actually 15 a hour... but working hospice can be hard and they lose people a lot so the pay is higher...i dont enjoy hospice work so i took the hospital job instead even with less pay i live in southern california if that helps at all.. and thats what the wages are usually like around here, some countys a little higher than mine, but as a CNA you cant expect a high payrate. being a CNA is good if you are doing it as a nursing student for experience, if you want to be a CNA as your career the money should come along the road as you gain experience... my boyfriends mom has been a CNA for 10 years and makes 19 dollars a hour. but starting off dont expect much unless you get lucky! try to get 6 months experience in a nursing home then try and get a hospital job then you should get better pay hope this helps you :)

thank you rancel, yeah i did call and ask i am just going to wear street clothes. from what i heard we are getting a 8 hour orientation, then we shadow someone for like 3 shifts and thats it :-/ i am going to bring my notepad becuase that helped me a lot in cinicals. im excited but i am scared, i am only 18 and i have a feeling there wont be very many other young people at the hospital, hopefully they respect me. im just glad im doing this during nursing school its really a great thing

thank you that was pretty much what i was wondering

okay so i called them today asking what to wear she said it doesnt matter just be comfortable scrubs or street clothes are okay. so now i have to pick which one!! lol i wish she woulda just said one or the other! i think ill just wear casual nice street clothes... no point to wear scrubs if im not doing any work...but if everyone else is wearing scrubs i will feel kinda retarded :-/

im going to a hospital and working the med-surg unit ive have no experience in a hospital all i have experience in is LTC for school cinicals then i worked home health for 6 months so i totally dont know what to expect haha. very nervous.

this is my new job and orientation is coming up on the 6th i have never really been to a CNA orientation before... in home health they didnt really have that so should i wear scrubs or not, has anyone had a LTC or hospital orientation and could let me know what people usually wear to this?! i really want to make a good impression help meeee

at my school they have a bridge program where you can go from LVN to the 3rd semester RN once your prereqs are done so basically do you just get a spot if RNs are dropping out of the program or what? does anybody know how that works?

my boyfriend is a pharmacy tech and he never went to school for it. He basically was with walgreens for 2 years as a clerk, then they asked him if he wanted to work in the pharmacy. He studied for 2 months and took the test and now he is a pharmacy tech! there is no point to go to school for it O.o he gets paid 13.75 a hour, but this is in southern california so i think the wages are higher here

you all made me feel so much better and more confident about this postion! i am excited about this new job! i know it will be stressful, but i cant wait for the learning experience. thank you all for making me feel good about this!!!! :heartbeat

thank you everyone for helping me out, I understand what per diem means now...i feel a lot better. I think i will be fine and probably will get enough hours... I figure they wouldnt put me through this whole hiring process if they didnt need more help... I start on oct 6th and im really excited. im pretty tired of this home health place I work at, they give me a ton of hours but mostly house cleaning type stuff.... im like what the heck i didnt take this CNA class to clean peoples houses all day... GIVE ME SOME PATIENT CARE. haha.