Should I take a CNA class?

Sarah Bellum · Jan 27, 2008

I just finished a CNA class and am hoping to start NS this fall or next. I think it will be helpful for me to work as a CNA just to get used to working in health care. I've always worked in offices (non-medical) or warehouses and I'm sure the enviornment, politics, etc. are all very different, not to mention to scope of work a CNA has to do. I'm looking forward to it actually.

The community college I took my class through also offers an ADN and they actually require their ADN applicants to take the CNA class before they will place them on the wait list.

Like I said for me I think it will be helpful just so I can get used to working in a hospital before nursing school so I'm used to the enviornment before my first day of clinicals.

Good luck!

Karen

nurz2be · Jan 27, 2008

Hi everyone,
I am new to the boards. Hope you can help me out here. I have been accepted into an ADN program for Fall 2008. Now, I am starting to have doubts. I don't know if I'm going to like nursing or not. Do you think it would be a good idea to take a CNA course before starting the ADN program? I would hate to spend all my money and time to find out nursing is not for me. I have heard how stressful it is and I have no nursing experience. Are there any of you out there that started out as CNAs and progressed onto an ADN program?

I was a CNA years ago but remember it quite well. I am currently a nursing student in an ADN program. I will tell you this, once you are out of fundamentals (the first few months), at least at my school, being a CNA versus not being a CNA makes no difference. I will also tell you that what you learn as a CNA and how you learned to do things will be turned upside down. You, the student, are shown the way the instructors want you to do things. You can be a 20 year CNA veteran and be learning these skills all over again.

Where being a CNA does help is that you are already acclimated to dealing with both cooperative and uncooperative patients. Your nerves are not quite as rattled. Being a CNA previous to being a nurse, I FEEL, gives you a better respect for what they do.....what they go through, day in and day out.

You ca be just as fantastic a nurse with or without being a CNA. If you need to work while in school, being a CNA is a good way to be around nursing, but you will find that once you are in school you will be relearning those skills and MANY MANY more...

GOOD LUCK TO YOU