Working during school

[Ztmatth13]

I have two main questions.. for one I have been working as a cna for the past year but want a job that involves less butt wiping while I finish school, and was wondering if anyone has any good ideas of jobs while attending school that may allow for some study time and a flexible schedule while preferably giving some relevant experience.

Second thing is what kind of work schedule would you recommend during school!? Thanks in advance

[Rionoir, ADN, RN]

You're still going to be doing butt-wiping when you're a nurse.

[Golden_RN, MSN]

What's wrong with butt wiping? That's what we do!

Look into cross training at your employer for a ward clerk-type position.

[ThatChickOmi, ADN, RN]

My current job (been there since 2010) has nothing to do with healthcare at all but it's been flexible and adequate income for me even through this nursing program. I generally work Friday-Sunday 5am-2ishpm.

You wanna drive a box truck and deliver stuff to people? ? I promise you wont wipe any butts

[Workitinurfava, BSN, RN]

It is very hard to escape the butt wiping. Just put it in your head right now that you will work without a tech/CNA many times so that when you get on the floor you won't be disappointed or say, "I thought someone else was suppose to be doing this."

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

I have a favorite saying: "Everyone wipes the butt!!!" This is because in healthcare, it's pretty much true. Once you're doing direct patient care, at some point you're going to be the one that has to wipe the butt. There's truly nothing wrong with it as this gives you an excellent opportunity to do a skin check.

I've seen everyone from the lab tech to the physician wipe the butt. Now then, in order to keep the lab techs from going completely batty about this, if there's a butt-wiping that needs to be done and they were the ones that discovered it, I'll happily do it, and if they're willing to help a little bit by helping position the patient, that's better!

While you're going to nursing school, you're not going to escape this...

However, you might be able to cross-train over to a different position at your work. Be wary about that as it may put you at the bottom of any seniority in that new position. You might not get a work schedule that is compatible with school. If you're currently working as a CNA and you've got a schedule that does work or will work around your school schedule (and your clinicals too), you may want to keep that and bear with it for a while.

The other good part about working as a CNA is that you'll be far better at doing the very basic nursing tasks than most of your classmates so you'll be able to focus on learning the classroom stuff. Toward the end of the program, that "advantage" will diminish toward nil but you'll have to keep yourself a little bit "in-check" at work as your knowledge and skills will have progressed well beyond that of any CNA, though you won't have license to exceed that at work. Tough spot to be in...

What I would recommend as far as a work-schedule goes is to look at the general schedule for the school over the past few semesters for all portions and look at what they have generally required and then look at a work schedule that will accommodate that with minimal disruptions to work. Then look for a work schedule that may allow you to study while at work. This, if it's possible, will help you increase your available time at home to do the tasks of life. When I went to school, I had to work full-time and went to school full-time. Fortunately for me, I was allowed to study and do much of my "homework" while at work. Generally my school schedule was Mon-Thurs 8-2pm. My work schedule was Thurs-Mon 3p-11p. This meant that there were only a couple days that actually overlapped. On those days, I'd get most of my homework done at work and I might have to do another 1-2 hours at home to finish up. That usually meant surviving (and I mean that) on about 6 hours of sleep many nights. It was exhausting and I'm sure I got burnt out more than a couple times but when you know there's an end-date to the madness, you know it's possible to get through, take a good break and get recharged.

Nursing school isn't really all that hard, it's just that there's so much thrown at you... Yes, I'm also a Paramedic and P-school was pretty much the same way. Huge volume of info in a short period of time, but not that difficult otherwise. Neither program was truly difficult academically. I do also have a BS degree in Sports Med. That was a very difficult and rigorous program. I've had nothing that hard since...

[araew2129, ADN]

Agree with everyone else. But also, you could look into doing home based care. You make less money typically, but many clients are fully functional and need minimal help with ADLs, or things like cleaning and shopping (although, some clients are full care too). You can pretty much make your own schedule too.