LaterAlligator

I'm in my last quarter of an ADN program and while I'm friendly and polite with my whole cohort, I really am only actual friends with one classmate. You know that quote "comparison is the thief of joy"? I reflect on that when I feel like everyone else has bonded more, or is more comfortable in the situation, than I am.

It is always worth calling. I have done this after quitting at an assisted living facility that I worked at as an uncertified caregiver back in the day. State will investigate, may impose a 'stop placement' order on the facility so they cannot accept new residents until they have corrected their deficiencies, and will improve the safety and care of the elders there. Very worthwhile. Please call!

I've just finished my first year so I know there's more to be exposed to, but I like wound/ostomy care so far. I enjoyed the NICU which surprised me, and disliked L&D And ER, which was no surprise.

Where I live, you have to put in a year as a LTC CNA before getting a job in the hospital, basically always. I think it's worthwhile. I'm in a 2 year ADN program now, after several years as a CNA, and my program doesn't require students to be certified as nursing assistants first anymore. We just took our ATI fundamentals assessment and our cohort on the whole was below national averages in the "basic care and comfort" category of questions. Those are the things you want to be able to do in your sleep, so that you can concentrate on the stuff you can only learn in nursing school. I did well on the exam and was thankful to have worked as a CNA. I think it really is helpful even though it's hard.

I'm in the 3rd quarter of my first year of a 2 year ADN program, and we just did the ATI Fundamentals assessment. I thought it was helpful, especially because we did some practice tests on the ATI website and have these ATI books for different topics (ie OB, Med Surg, etc.). I don't know about the more advanced ATI assessments because we haven't gotten there yet.

I switched to 12's (as a hospital CNA) when I got into nursing school, and while I appreciate the fewer workdays per week, my weekends at work kick my butt. Hard. When I worked 8's, that was less so. Although the burnout aspect of feeling like you're ALWAYS at the hospital with 5 8's is a real factor too. Overall I'll stick with my 12's. Unless I wind up working somewhere I have to commute a long distance to. If that were the case I could see myself getting so tired I'd want a motel room after work!

You get used to it, with time. I used to have a blood/needle phobia, to the point where I actually passed out when getting my own blood drawn, more than once. It's different, at least for me, when there is a real person depending on you. Responsibility overrides my willies, to the point when I've been ok even when a dementia patient who was getting a blood transfusion pulled out her IV catheter and painted her bedding and face with that unit of blood! It was disgusting, but I knew she needed me. So I was able to suck it up. hope that helps! Start small, watch YouTube educational videos, maybe, on the stuff you hate, to begin with.

Money and time, basically. I cut back from 38 hours a week at work to 24. I have school Tues-Friday and work 2 12-hour shifts on the weekends. I don't have much free time anymore & my relationships are suffering some because of it. But I know it'll be worth it when I'm done!

Not 100% sure if that's the type of visial you meant (we haven't gotten to fluids & electrolytes yet in my program) but it looked helpful to me. I find a lot of things like that on Pinterest, actually!

I work 2 12-hour shifts per week while in nursing school as a CNA. If I could afford to just do school I would even though I'm getting experience & like my coworkers a lot. School is tough!

I've been a CNA for about 5 years now, and continue to work as one at my local hospital while I'm in my ADN program. I find that my experience has been incredibly helpful with school so far. Also, one of the only ways to get hired at my hospital as a new grad nurse is by working there in a different role first to build up seniority. I say go for it! And expect your time in LTC to be hellish. It's a trial-by-fire but you'll learn prioritization and speed quickly.

You can mentally juggle and prioritize the needs of 10+ patients, and plan your route around the unit accordingly (including knowing which ones will try to flag you down even if you're carrying a heavy food tray and bag of trash, so you detour in order to avoid their path!).

Job title:CNA Location: Washington State rate of pay: $15.15/hr, originally hired at $11.47 differentials:yes, more on eve shift, night shift, and weekends. shifts usually worked 12 hour day shifts from 0700-1930 current specialty: Ortho years of experience: 5 employment status:part time (24 hours per week, which is my facility's minimum to be eligible for benefits. career goals currently enrolled in a 2 year ADN-RN program :)

I'm just finishing my first quarter of nursing school & can see potential for strong friendships with a few of my classmates. I tend to be kind of private and slow to open up, so part of me was worried that everyone would have jelled into cliques by the time I was comfortable enough to talk to people. So far everyone still seems to be open, but I think we're getting to the stage where people may drop out or fail out

The biggest difference I've seen is in Union jobs vs. Nonunion jobs, regardless of the profit status of the organization. At my nonunion jobs I've had them try to force me to pay for my own mandatory Ed. (despite them saying it'd be provided in my orientation) and work there 5 years before being eligible for health insurance. I would never work nonunion again.

I work 24 hours a week and go to school full time, but no kids. Do what you gotta do!

I like the Skechers workwear line, they fit the bill and are cheaper :) Danskos have very firm soles and seem crazy uncomfortable to me.

Jeez, and I thought the guy in my cohort was bad! All I can say is maybe when he fails at things, take that schadenfreude as some stress relief for yourself. And figure out which specific traits of his are alienating everyone so you can be sure to assess yourself for them. That's what I've done with my jerk classmate so far, and it's helped me some.

I'm doing it, because I have to, financially. I'm taking 13 credits, it's my first quarter in my ADN program. And I work 24 hours per week at the hospital as a CNA, two 12 hour shifts every weekend. It's possible but difficult. Good luck!

I second what's been said here; most confused people are afraid of showering, I don't know why that is but it's definitely a hallmark of Alzheimer's. With really, really difficult patients, I've resorted to "accidentally" spilling water on them, apologizing profusely (sometimes I'll say it was coffee or juice to increase the incentive to get it cleaned off) and then while apologizing, shepherded them into the bathroom to change their clothes and whipped out at least a partial sponge bath while they're in-between clothing changes. If they're combative and likely to be really mad at you for "accidentally" spilling on them, coordinate with someone else to be the one who gets them fixed up afterwards. But do it right then and there while it's still in their head what happened. The other thing that works wonderfully is getting an order for PRN xanax or ativan to premedicate them for bathing. I'm not saying that for your run-of-the-mill resistive patients, just the ones who really refuse or fly off the handle.

I try to remember to be nice to the nursing students who come in to do their clinicals on my floor at the hospital, but it can be very frustrating to have to follow them around to be sure they didn't do something that compromised my patients' safety, especially when I have 14 patients and they're helping an RN with 3-4 patients. One took my patient to the bathroom and didn't put her oxygen back on, and my patient was satting 68% by the time I got in there. I'm sure I was a little terse in my greeting and my phone call to that RN "Your patient is desatted down in the 60's how many liters per minute do you want her on?". I know everyone can make mistakes, but you still don't want to see the patients you're responsible for caring for get hurt because someone else is brand new and mistake prone.

Mister, I know you can't find your member to place it in the urinal. I can't either, I just look for a hole in your enormous scrotum and hold the urinal an inch below it. But when I say CALL FOR ASSISTANCE when you have to pee, I mean it. You are too big and immobile for me to continually change your bed every time you urinate all over the place trying to use the urinal on your own. And if you say "okay, now pull me up in bed" again, I will laugh and cry at the same time. What makes you think I'm capable of doing that with no help from you? You're twice my size! I didn't do it the last four times you said it, and I'm not going to start now. You need to pull your own self up in bed, you're supposed to be getting mobile and GOING HOME at some point! And when you do, I am going to dance up and down the hallways!

Yes, I know you're having a lot of pain with movement, but I really think we'd better get you up to the bedside commode to go potty, because if I put you on one of our plastic bedpans, that thing's just gonna flatten like a penny on a railroad track. And then we'll be doing a full bed change and partial bed bath. Which is going to involve you rolling around a ton. So let's skip all that and haul you up out of that bed, ok?

I also work as a PCA/CNA on an ortho floor, and it sounds like you have the main meds I hear all the time. Additionally, the non-narcotic pain medications like Tramadol. And tons of anti-nausea such as phenergen, compazine, etc. I would think probably the main things to be aware of with all of these is how they interact, since it's common to really go after the patient's pain aggressively, but you don't want to oversedate someone and have to narcan them. You can probably observe a lot of that in your role right now, I'm sure you've seen patients who conk out after a small dose of phenergen and also have seen people with astronomical tolerance to narcotics. I don't know if they use it where you are, but we also semi-regularly have patients come in who're currently on methadone, typically due to heroin use but very occasionally for pain control without a history of IV drug use. Good luck! Ortho is so much fun and very interesting!