Sometimes I Miss Being a CNA

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I miss being able to go in, do my job, and go home to my family.

I'm tired of all the responsibility and all the problems of being a nurse.

Anyone else feel like this or am I just having (another) midlife crisis?

lol, yeah, I bet you guys miss the CNA salary too.

Time to move on.

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

True, there's a lot about being a CNA that I don't miss.

What I'm talking about here is what TigerGaile and Aunty said--we miss the patient contact.

I find it so ironic that some of the things that would help me do a better job as a nurse with these patients are tasks now delegated to CNAs.

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

sometimes i miss being a patient care tech. the job was easier, no liabilty. if the pay wasn't so bad , i probably would have stayed a tech a little while longer. now that i am a nurse, i want to do something else. never satisfied are we???

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

I always tell my boss she can send me back to being a tech as long as she continues to pay me my nurse pay..she laughs at me...

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I don't miss having a nurse come to me at the end of shift complaining that I didn't do my 8th bedbath, when at the time I was helping out a fellow CNA transfer a patient to bed who weighed a ton!

I don't miss being looked down upon by fellow health care workers for cleaning people's behinds!

I don't miss arrogant nurses who wouldn't greet you in the morning 'cause you weren't part of the "ICU Club."

I don't miss the poor pay for back breaking work.

PS. I take time to help my CNAs, do you?

I donot either

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Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.

I've been a CNA for about a year and a half now and graduate ns this may. I recently switched to day shift and right now I'm just very frustrated with my job. I work as hard as I can and run the entire shift and yet it seems like there's ALWAYS something I'm not doing "fast" enough. I guess I just haven't learned how to be everywhere the nurses need me all at once.... just frustrated :banghead:

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Specializes in NICU.

That is how i felt all the time when i was a tech too.... always frustrated... then you become a nurse and you have all the responsiblity! which is even scarier... you can no longer go tell your nurse the patient's BP is 60/30... because now you are the nurse!!! :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.
That is how i felt all the time when i was a tech too.... always frustrated... then you become a nurse and you have all the responsiblity! which is even scarier... you can no longer go tell your nurse the patient's BP is 60/30... because now you are the nurse!!! :uhoh3:

Yeah I've realized this here the past couple of months, and it scares the *#$@ out of me! One day it just donged on me that hey one day when I get a blood sugar reading of 546 I won't be able to just "tell the nurse" cause I might be the nurse :trout: :trout: :trout:

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Specializes in floor to ICU.
I guess it was the thread about the bed baths. I miss having the time to do complete bed baths on patients, lotion, nail care, all that.

Every time I'm passing pills in the hospital and doing my assessments, I'm thinking how awful it is that for our Tele patients, they need a doctor's order to be able to bathe. (Or, ironically, they get 2 showers before an open-heart procedure.)

To me, that's such a basic nursing task--to help the patients feel better by getting them cleaned up.

We hardly have time to reposition patients nowadays, and I think it's sad that we have to be so hard-pressed that we can't do the basics anymore.

I was not a tech prior to nursing. I was able to do a complete bed bath on my pt on Saturday. As a nurse, you can learn so much about your patient that way- mobility, skin, alertness. You also learn about a lot as a person. Meaning, having the time to chat during the bath about their past, likes, family, etc. I wish I had time to do that everyday.

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I don't miss having a nurse come to me at the end of shift complaining that I didn't do my 8th bedbath, when at the time I was helping out a fellow CNA transfer a patient to bed who weighed a ton!

I don't miss being looked down upon by fellow health care workers for cleaning people's behinds!

I don't miss arrogant nurses who wouldn't greet you in the morning 'cause you weren't part of the "ICU Club."

I don't miss the poor pay for back breaking work.

PS. I take time to help my CNAs, do you?

I hear ya. As a CNA I think those very things you said. But sometimes I choose to be optimistic and I come up with this:

I think nurses have all those problems, just different context. They get griped at if a med isn't given on time, NM breathing down their throats to do things the right way but give them 8 pts. They get looked down upon by dr's who think they 'just' nurses. Arrogant dr's and clueless administration don't greet them in the morning. They may not lift as much, but alot more is on their back.

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Yeah I've realized this here the past couple of months, and it scares the *#$@ out of me! One day it just donged on me that hey one day when I get a blood sugar reading of 546 I won't be able to just "tell the nurse" cause I might be the nurse :trout: :trout: :trout:

And I didn't feel that nursing school trained me in dealing with that either. We studied 1001 patient conditions, the pathophys, the medical treatment and the nursing care. But what TO DO on the floor when these situations arise? As a new grad... get an experienced nurse!!!

And yes, I did miss that nurses didn't get to give some of the care measures that CNAs do. They're a great opportunity to assess the patient and to get a feel for their individual needs. Of course, many CNAs are also just as pressed for time, having to rush through their care, unable to take the time to actually make a human connection with the patients.

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I always tell my boss she can send me back to being a tech as long as she continues to pay me my nurse pay..she laughs at me...

I work in OB. In my hospital, if an OB nurse is floated, they are utilized as a tech. I don't like to float outside of our OB units, but at least I don't have the responsibility of a nursing assignment in an unfamiliar area. I still do more than "tech stuff" to help out where I can, but only to the extent I would on my home unit. I will re-start an IV for the primary nurse, but I won't be responsible for the cardiac monitors or adjusting ortho epuipment I have never seen before.

BTW, this is a two way street. Any non-OB nurse floated to OB works as a tech for us.

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