Like most folks here, I decided to become a CNA to learn from the "ground up"," pay my dues", get in contact with healthcare professionals. It's the biggest mistake I've made in recent years.
Know why? CNA school doesnt really tell you what being a CNA is about. The private CNA school admission officers lie and gloss over the truth all the while collecting that exorbitant tuition. At a skilled nursing facility where 99% of you will start in, it's 80% changing diapers and making beds. It is a back-breaking, thankless, feces-collecting, low-paying scut job that you can master within months if not weeks or days. I should know. I have.
All those techniques of bedbathing, turning, grooming? Hah. Out the window. CNA school makes you think you have all the time in the world to attend to these patient needs. No way. You have an overloaded roster of patients and no time to talk, let alone groom them. You have your lead CNAs, your other residents and the nurses themselves yelling at you to attend to their needs. The first month, I was almost crippled for a week because my back was so aching and I had used proper body mechanics. These patients are so overweight, that turning them on the bed just to change their diaper is excruciating at times. CNA school didn't help with that problem among the other REAL situations that arise in LTC.
Being a CNA means you see the whiniest, neediest dark side of people. After I became one, I've heard one consistent caveat amongst nursing professionals, "You'll get burnt out and will start hating your patients." All true.
Another caveat? The nurses, whom you work with and are hoping to become one day, you eventually deeply resent. Why? CNAs do ALL the heavy lifting. If a resident vomits or ***** in his pants? Guess who the nurse immediately calls because she can't stomach it. You'll have three call lights to answer and the nurse is yelling at you on top of that to get her vitals done.
And for those hoping to get into a hospital? Good luck, because to basically get in you have to be a blood relative or really lucky. Especially if you have no experience. Those CNAs working at those hospitals are basically lifers doing the same thing over and over for years on end. Don't envy them too much.
Become a Medical assistant. You have more interaction with the doctors and nurses, higher variety of patients rather than just old people. No heavy lifting except for maybe transferring once in a long while. The pay is roughly the same, the schooling is longer though. Tuition is a little more but totally worth it. It also counts as healthcare experience which is key since my eventual goal is to get into physician assistant school. Barring that, then nursing school.
I came in like you all nursing hopefuls wanting to help people. It gets harder week by week to maintain that attitude but there are some bright spots like when one of my residents relatives pulled me aside to tell me that her mother loves me taking care of her. Yet, I can feel my attitude waning. I've been in for three months and it feels like years.
I'm doing you a favor here. Do yourself a favor and wave off becoming a CNA and be a MA. I wish I did. As for the tuition? There are public school options. I found one for $750, that teaches front and back office at local adult school here in California.
