Should all nursing students be required to be a CNA for one year?

Nurses General Nursing

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Okay, please dont take my head off......but I hear/see so many students/new nurses regret the career path for whatever the reason maybe. My question is......Should all future nurses be required by law to have at least one year as a CNA before being accepted into nursing school? I ask this b/c new nurses are taught, it seems, so little about that level of nursing. A CNA being the most basic of the nursing staff, just does not seem correct if those who will rule over them does not have it.

As well as, the career path can be examined more closely by rolling up the sleeves and jumping in with body, mind and soul. Finding out if this is the place for you before you spend $$$$, time and even taking the seat in nursing school from someone who really knows this is for them.

Thank you for reading this and for your gentle response's. :)

In my first semester of nursing school I was scared to death to even walk into a patient room when I got into clinicals.... I took a job as a PCT (similar to a CNA) during my second semester and WHAT a difference! It increased my confidence, taught me alot of skills, got me comfortable with patients, their family members, and being around other members of the healthcare team. It made things realistic to me. I had these rose colored glasses on about how glamorous nursing was going to be.... being a PCT was a reality check for me. You know at that point whether you will make it as a nurse or not... better to find out then, rather than when you graduate.

I'm in my final practicum now and I see a complete, total diference between myself and my friends who didn't have to/choose to work during nursing school.... I'm far more confident and 'critical thinking savvy' than they are... and that's going to make them more stressed when they get out in the field.....

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Specializes in Med-surg > LTC > HH >.

Would it be beneficial yea, should it be mandatory, h$%# no. :rolleyes: Unless you want to see an even worse nursing shortage, don't even think mandatory. I did it for 6 weeks while waiting for my nclex results, and wouldn't do it again. I have the utmost respect for the "good" cna's that are out there. I don't even want to do thier job as I'm sure most of them don't want my job.:p

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ya know... I didn't even have to pay to go to CNA school... I just went to the hospital after my first semester of nursing school and said "Hey, I can do hospital corners and wipe @$$... hire me?" and they did. Starting at 13.50 an hour with no experience but that first semester of nursing school....

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Where would they all get hired? Where I live they've been laying off CNAs. The unit I did my last semester clinicals in no longer uses CNAs. I know at my nursing school we were considered CNA qualified after one year of school. But nobody around here was hiring; trust me a lot of us tried!

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Here in KY when I was in Nursing School it was required. I was already a CNA and had been for 2 years and I think it was very beneficial for me especially when I went to clinicals and all the other girls in the class just took the class and didn't work as a CNA. It also helped me alot when 1/2 of our clinicals were completed in the nursing home I worked in. So, I do feel like it should be required, you learn alot of respect for CNA's! Please be nice with your posts.

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Specializes in ER, Medicine.

By law? No way. While having CNA training is a good idea...it's just more money that we would have to pay in order to make it where we want to be. More students should voluenteer or talk to a nurse. Read about it. And yes sign up to be a CNA. But by law? No, that's a little too much.

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Hello. I can't see why the poster thinks this is something to be "required by law". Do you also think that med students should HAVE TO start at the bottom of the totem pole to make them more patient friendly? That would almost make more sense to me than requiring nursing students, who will be doing nothing BUT patient care during clinicals take a REQUIRED CNA course, because we act as CNAs all throughout clinicals (without the benefit of pay!)

At my school, it was "highly recommended" that prospective students take a CNA course, but most of us have not. The students who have been and are CNAs certainly seemed more confident than the rest of us during the first semester, but guess what....we all learned and performed the duties of a CNA while at clinicals and will be doing so for the remainder of the program save the end Practicum course (at least I hope to have a CNA to help me then, since I'll be on my own with 5 to 6 patients!)

Ponder this....did the students who were CNAs before nursing school walk into their jobs as a confident CNA? NO. Everyone has to learn these things, and after the first semester, I am much more comfortable at clinicals, as are most of us. It took some getting used to...cleaning, bathing, bed making, but these things can certainly be learned while in school, and it seems that most nursing schools do incorporate this into their teaching. Some of us actually think that the CNA duties are OVERemphasized in our program. No offense, but a lot of what I'm doing I will NOT be doing as an RN, and certainly not as a CRNA, which is the field I plan on working in. I realize other areas of nursing will require the nurses to perform CNA duties. If those nurses haven't figured out how to bathe or clean a patient after two years of doing it in nursing school...then they probably won't be passing the N-CLEX either.:chuckle

I have (and will be doing for the next year) the duties of a CNA plus those of a nurse all WITHOUT PAY, so believe me when I say I will always appreciate good CNAs because it is a tough job and CNAs are greatly needed.

I couldn't help but notice from most of the posts on this thread that the majority of people who feel this should be a requirement happen to be CNAs.

Hmmmmm.:rolleyes:

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Do you also think that med students should HAVE TO start at the bottom of the totem pole to make them more patient friendly?

There's a few i can think of now that working their way up would have done them well. Might actually make them appreciate those other who help in pt. care.

I couldn't help but notice from most of the posts on this thread that the majority of people who feel this should be a requirement happen to be CNAs.

And i also saw quite a few nurses who, even after 4-5 years of school, couldn't give a bed bath or feed a pt., because their program focused on meds and paperwork. Which is why i don't see the harm in taking the class, but never said it should be a law.

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Well, we know that CNA duties are all skills that every nurse is SUPPOSED to learn and SHOULD be able to master and demonstrate within a certain amount of time.

I mean, my goodness, how long does it take to give a bath and make a bed??

Personally, I think if students could demonstrate these skills within the early part of school, they should be able to go on to a higher level of training.

I remember back in my own LPN training, that it seemed like we did alot of bathing and bedmaking that we could have been doing something else to help prepare us.

There is so much I didn't get to learn back when I went to school, sometimes I wish I could go thru an LPN course today just for the benefit of obtaining newer knowledge.

Where I work I feel like I've "lost" alot. I've been there almost 25 years, and altho I love the work it's not acute care. Most I do is bandage up, steri strip or glue lacerations, send people out for x-rays, put in a foley once a month, and give meds.

Sorry for a long post. It was just things on my mind.

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This has turned out to be a very interesting thread. I think what bothers me is that there seems to be some nurses (none here) who think that the essence of nursing is very simple technical skills. It's not. At the same time, bedside skills are VERY important, and should not be neglected, and I get irritated by nurses who are bad at a particular skill, and then pretend it's "beneath" them to get better. But some of the skills mentioned are a part of a complex of professional duties. Bed baths, for example, are useful in assessing skin integrity, hydration levels, among other things. Same with, to give an example we all know and love, dealing with bedpans, which can give the nurse a lot of information (probably more than we want to know :-) about nutritional status, hydration, absorption, etc. A nurse and the CNAs who work together need to be a team, and even if the nurse if not doing the actual hands-on care, the nurse must know what's going on with that care.

I started out as a CNA. I learned a huge amount about bedside care, and it has stood me well. I would oppose an legal requirement for CNA training, but I know I'm not the only one who values what I learned there.

Jim Huffman, RN

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CNA I certification is a pre-req at my school. Then we also get extra points if we get our CNA II. I'm going to take my CNA I classes this summer.

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At my college, MSMC, when we began our practicals, we did indeed learn those core skills (which become the CNAs practice scope) and did them repeatedly in order to master them. It's those direct care skills on which the rest of nursing is developed, built and expanded to infinitum. However, nursing is NOT simply turning, changing, ADLs.

After 1 quarter of being in the nursing program, we could be "certified" to work in hospitals as "techs" or Unlicensed NA. I did that 3/4 of the way through my program when I had to quit my traditional job (child problems).

Insofar as having a mandate that all nursing students should be CNAs: NO.

As with any other field of study, one should do one's research to determine if that profession is "for them". Even if they don't find out until they are in the program...it's their choice to drop and go toward another career.

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