Some of the things you hear as a student..

bankssarn · Oct 12, 2012

I don't see it a CNA stuff. As nurses, we care for the whole patient. If that means putting a patient on a bedpan or swabbing their mouth, so be it. It's just as much my job as it is the CNA's.

Clovery · Oct 12, 2012

The first half of my first semester we learned and did the "CNA stuff" in the lab & at clinical. I don't know how they could have expected us to already know it.

PMFB-RN, RN · Oct 12, 2012

The first half of my first semester we learned and did the "CNA stuff" in the lab & at clinical. I don't know how they could have expected us to already know it.

*** In many schools CNA is a pre-req required to apply to the nursing program.

ShineyNickelRN · Oct 12, 2012

What I had a good laugh about recently is that my family thinks just because I am in Nursing School I know everything. I have to keep reminding them that I am in first semester and just starting out. My family is cute. And as far as the CNA stuff, my school also required us to be CNA's as a prereq. So far this first semester we are getting a little bit of a refresher on the CNA stuff, but then we are also doing nursing stuff like foley cath, passing out meds along with other stuff. I don't mind getting a refresher on the CNA part either. I figured I can roll with it and it's all good learning experiences.

PMFB-RN, RN · Oct 12, 2012

What I had a good laugh about recently is that my family thinks just because I am in Nursing School I know everything. I have to keep reminding them that I am in first semester and just starting out. My family is cute. And as far as the CNA stuff, my school also required us to be CNA's as a prereq. So far this first semester we are getting a little bit of a refresher on the CNA stuff, but then we are also doing nursing stuff like foley cath, passing out meds along with other stuff. I don't mind getting a refresher on the CNA part either. I figured I can roll with it and it's all good learning experiences.

*** Many of us, most of us? Have friends and family who think we know everything there is to know about medical problems. It is OK to teach them about things you know about. Like if a family member asks you about COPD you can tell them what you know about COPD. What you must not do is provide medical advice to friends and family. So it's fine to explain conditions and share your knowlage, however if asked what that person should do about their medical condition you need to refer them to their health care provider, a physician, NP or PA. Providing medical advice is not your roll as an RN. Teaching is.

As for "CNA work". Look it's ALL nursing. All nursing tasks are the RN's responsibiliety. We can deligate certain things to LPNs or CNA but we (the RNs) are responsible for providing all the nursing care for the patients we have accepted responsibiliety for until we hand off responsibiliety to another nurse. There is no "CNA work" related to patient care. It is all nursing care and you as the RN are responsible for it. In order to be able to properly supervise LPNs and CNAs (and we DO supervise them clinicaly per your states nurse practice act. YOU are accountable for any care they provide to your patients) you must understand their skill and knowlage level.

Many areas of nursing do "primary nursing". That means the RN does every nursing task from bed bath to managing the intra aortic ballon pump. I would say most of the ICUs I ahve worked in didn't use CNAs, of if they did they didn't staff them every shift.

vintage_RN, BSN, RN · Oct 12, 2012

I just started my program...being an aide is not a requirement so all we've learned so far is things like basic a&p, transferring, basic care, moving and positioning etc...after the break in oct we start on vitals and dosage calculations. We don't start meds or patho until 2ND semester.

Stephalump · Oct 12, 2012

We had a special summer class before we started the program. Current CNAs could exempt from it because it was just basic care stuff, but they still encourage them to come because learning to do ADLs and whatnot from the RN perspective is different. We were never given many "why"s in my CNA program. Just step by step, this is what you do. This is what you don't do. In our basic care class we spent a lot of time learning the rationales, as well as delegation.

traumanurse2b? · Oct 12, 2012

Our program has a nursing asst class we have to take beforehand also. We do basic patient care and some invasive things such as Foley's, blood draws, wet-to-moist dressing changes, and then ekg's and vitals. It gives us the opportunity to get a job at the hospital while in school :)