blessedinscrubs

We have CNA students that come to my facility (nursing home) for clinicals, and they crack me up. They all wear, like, stethoscopes around their necks and carry blood pressure monitors and take 45 minutes to toilet an ambulatory person. Gotta love '...

Once I gave up my dream of working night shift (10 to 6), and agreed to work any shift available, it took me about 20 minutes to secure a job, lol.

Does the person have some balance in their upper body? Do y'all have a sit to stand lift? To me, the sit to stands are so much quicker and less scary to the residents. I :redbeathe using the sit to stand - the added bonus is that for some reason, whe...

In the last two years that I've worked there, my facility has gone through several different sets of DON's, ADON's, supervisors, etc.... Seems to me like when we have level headed, reasonable people in those positions, it makes all the difference. Y...

Make absolutely sure that you knock on the resident's door - loudly enough that a person with not-so-good hearing would hear you - everytime you enter the room. Knock and say "Good morning/afternoon/etc Miss/Mr. Smith/Jones/etc! I'm Yajaira, a CNA, a...

Cleaning vomit off wheelchairs is rough for me. I don't mind wiping it off a face, chest, changing vomit covered clothes, etc, but trying to get the bits (ewwww) out of the nooks & crannies of a wheelchair is just :barf01: BM hardly ever bot...

I can relate to this. I was the same way during my clinicals. Never in my life had I felt that I was somewhere I really, truly belonged, as I did when I walked through the doors of that nursing home. When I took my test, the state examiner said to me...

You know, I think alot of it depends on the facility and it's routines. 1st shift seems like it's pretty maddening everywhere.... You've got two meals to get people to and from. Squeezing in showers and other things makes the pace pretty frantic. I r...

I spent a week running around trying to find 3rd shift but no facilities were hiring for third shift. Finally I gave up on trying to find 3rd shift, and opened my availability all the way. The first facility I went back to, to tell them my availabili...

Urine is acidic = causes skin breakdown = bedsores. I really believe this issue is one of the reasons people get sores, not to mention rashes/skin irritation, etc. When you do peri care, you can't necessarily *see* the mess that urine leaves on the ...

I would really worry about losing my certification in a situation like that. I'm with the others. Run for the hills. And keep the family in your prayers.

You see CNA's of all different ages. What I would ask, and I would ask this of people at any age - is do you have a strong back and good knees?

My typical day.... 5:45 AM: clock in, get assignment for the day 5:50ish AM: walking rounds with previous shift (checking on the residents on my assignment with the previous shift's CNA), fill clean laundry cart with linens, towels, incontinence pads...

Getting attached has it's good parts and bad. Some of the residents I am super attached to are the ones that make my day bright. The cute, sweet or funny things they say, when they call you sweetheart and ask for a hug, etc.... But when something ...

This fascinates me. You actually find time to brush your teeth? If I find the time to eat at all, I am usually cramming the food into my body so fast I am trying not to gag on it, and my mouth is still stuffed while I am nearly running back to my ass...

Nutrigrain bars, hard candies, mints, extra pens, sunglasses, Icy Hot for my back, Ibuprofen, body spray, hand lotion, deoderant, scrap paper... Do you ever wonder why nobody ever has a freakin pen? This is nursing. We will always, always need a pen...

Totally depends on the resident. Some would panic and ask me to do this, this, this, this, that, this and this for them before I go. Others would keep putting their light on, wanting to see me again. (Because of course, my relief would be FAR too bus...

You know, oddly enough, most of the hospitals in my area start CNA's at 50 cents to a dollar LESS per hour than the LTC facilities. I think the reason they justify it is that they offer tuition assistance. And every hospital I looked into working at ...

I rock because I never (and I am dead serious - I mean NEVER) tell a coworker "no" when they ask for help. If I can't help right away because I'm tied up with something, I tell them I'll be 5, 10 minutes or whatever, but I never refuse to help someon...

To the Staffing Coordinator and others who have been responsible for making the CNA schedules: STOP calling me on my days off and telling me either that (a) it's not really my day off and I'm supposed to be at work, ,or (b) I signed up to work today ...

It was pretty terrifying for me. I had four days of orientation, but the first two didn't help me much. I got put with CNAs whom I couldn't understand because their foreign accents were so thick. I have since come to understand them and other CNAs wi...