KirriG

Hmmm, my husband's list would look something like this (I'm still just a student): When he complains of a headache, out comes the BP cuff cos he has hypertension. He has to give me more information about his bowels than he ever assumed during our early married years. He has to put up with hearing funny/disgusting/nauseating stories from this website which have me ROFL. He hears far too many of them while he's eating something. He has to massage my feet and lower back a lot because I'm working as an assistant nurse to pay my way through university. But he's at least happy that we now have a first aid kit and someone competent to use it after raising our 5 kids without it. [sigh]

A handful of gloves, a pen, a piece of paper with the shift's showers on it (and probably by 2 hours into the shift, little notations next to names with bowel status) and the key to my locker. Assistant nurse in nursing home.

Wow, I would have loved to have more than 2 shifts training (I'm in a nursing home - LTC). I am totally with you too. I'm slow because I don't whizz through everything, especially with the really frail ones because they get so overwhelmed. BUT, I thought I would be the slowest one forever - and I may be - but I am still getting faster. Like another poster suggested, once you get to know your way around, you'll naturally and easily bunch tasks and areas to cut down on at least some of the time consuming 'wandering'. And yes I know noone wanders, but I used to fly from one end of the wing to the other because I followed the exact order on the duty list instead of realising the order was not always particulalry important! More importantly, I find that getting to know my residents helped a great deal, which is not useful in a hospital setting but worked wonders for me. Although a negative about that is they want to chat more because they know me! Hope everything picks up for you - let us know how your three day set went.

I've been working as an AIN (equivalent to your CNA but without taking vitals) in a nursing home for 5 months. Most of the people I've worked with have been great, very helpful at showing the newbie how things are done, but I have recently been put with an 'experienced' partner who's just awful! He's been reported by several other AIN's for his shoddy practices but nothing ever happens. He does doubles by himself - risky to him and the resident and heads rolling if a family member came in! He finishes early and doesn't do rounds properly so he can watch tv in the resident's lounge for the last 1 1/2 hours of the shift. The bosses know and I was told by the boss to just keep him on track - yeah right. So what would you do? My situation is that I'm going to be working casual hours so I can avoid that guy if I choose, but is there some way / technique you experienced CNA's would use on this guy? (Other than hitting his head in a door til he realises he isn't God or invincible. ) Cheers in advance.

I'm going for my registration... It'll take me another 3-4 years because I'm going 1 or 2 subjects a semester, but I'll get there in the end! Kirri

212. You have keyboard imprinbts on the side of your cheeks from falling asleep because you want to check 'just one more' thread. 213. You consider this site to be a valuable study resource, thus validating your continued dependence (and have every intention of changing that to a 'very valuable continuing education' resource when you graduate). 214. You only clean when the piles of detritus collapse onto the clear path between the door and the computer...and then you only clear the path. 215. You don't see the humour in "Who are these children and why are they calling me mum?"

You can tell him that I had one after my third child and my childless sister has had one too.

ummmm... Sorry Zoe, p&p is a bucket load of work, but super interesting cos you start to get the point of learning all that a&p. Put it this way, in my study group we could count 2 distinctions, 2 credits, 2 passes and 3 fails for P&P1. And we worked hard! I will give you one solid hint though - don't get rid of any of your a&p notes. Each section of p&p we revisit the basics of that system, and the info constitutes some easy marks in an otherwise hard exam. Cheers! Kirri Edited to add - I'm at Nathan campus. :)

Zoe, are you studying at Griffith Uni? I'm doing Pathophysiology and Pharmacology 2 this semester which also starts for me tomorrow. :) And like you I love it and can't wait to get stuck in again! Kirri

Lol, are you me? I'm 38 and just started my RN study. Because of having no experience, no family who are health care workers and finding it difficult to cope with people in pain I just hadn't ever considered the field. Then last year after having had experience in teaching, retail and admin and enjoying parts of those careers I realised I wanted something a lot less focussed on one aspect. RN's have high patient turnover, they teach, they chart and more! It turns out all those skills I gained in part-time work while raising my kids were just right! BUT ... There was still the "Can I handle people in pain?" question. (I don't really have issues with body gunk). So I started my study (2 weeks after my 38th birthday) and have gained work as a nursing assistant in a nursing home. And yes, it is hard. No question, but it's worthwhile and I can grasp that I will get the hang of it. I also feel better about the type of work I'm doing which helps! So go for it! If it feels like something you can spend several years or even the rest of your life doing, then you'll regret it if you let the opportunity pass. At least that's what I decided. Good luck in your decision, Kirri

ESFJ for me - apparently the 2 careers I've been tossing up (nursing and teaching) are both good fits! :) Kirri

I'm guessing because of the higher wages for more expereinced staff. Australia went through a bad patch of this in the 1990's where hospital admins were 'concerned' about growing health care costs and figured that getting rid of higher paid nurses was a good option. Never mind that the higher paid nurses got more money because ... wait for it .. their experience and skills. :icon_roll But firing them would have meant a lot of redundancy payments etc so their working conditions were rendered unsupportable and they left in droves. 15 years later and Australia has a terrible nursing shortage with government campaigns to get nurses to come back and try to encourage new people into the field. But I have a few friends who were burned in those years and they'd rather eat their own feet. lol Course, that's just a guess but if it is and your hospital is taking advantage of the economic situation to cut costs, I think it's probably a good sign that patient and nurse care is not a high priority for them. Kirri

So true - we were told in the first First Aid course I ever did that the ambulance the teacher worked in had been called out to a home for someone who had a seizure. They arrived to find ... and please be aware this is pretty awful before you read on ... that one of the men there had got a safety pin and punched through the victim's tongue and attached it to his lip. (As an aside I gotta admit to being really burned that the guy who did it didn't get his fingers bitten off which is a real possibility if you put your hand in the mouth of someone having a seizure!) So, no as others have said, clear the area, pad the area, protect the head as much as you can. NO restraining the patient! Afterwards put him/her in the recovery position, and as others have said, time the seizure and assess the patient for O2 needs. Then they'll want to sleep! Kirri

I kinda came to AIN (Aussie CNA) from the other direction. I'm a second year RN student (3 year Bachelor degree) and realised that with my course I'd be rocking out with very little experience in patient cares. Soo, I slowed down the study to part-time and swung over to AIN work in a nursing home. Excellent experience and in Australia it's also pretty reasonable pay. Base rate of $16.44/hour with 23% casual loading; 12.5% afternoon and 15% night loading and of course weekend rates are higher again. EEN's (our LPN's I think - anyway, endorsed to give out meds) get a couple of dollars more an hour and RN's a couple of dollars more again. Though weirdly the private sector (where I'm working atm cos of lack of experience) pays about $2-3 / hour LESS than the public health system. Is that the case in the USA? Cos it confused me. lol Kirri

This is great! Many thanks. I've just started as an AIN (the Aussie version of the CNA) and have been pretty cranky and sad about my slowness. I was partnered with an awesome experienced AIN and I think I may have been guilty of setting my speed and time managements too high for the moment. I always take longer than him because I want to do it right before fast. Here's hoping that speed will build! Cheers!