I was hesitant to post this, because of HIPAA but I've removed anything identifying about my patients, so I'm good.
I did these first 16 hours of my clinicals at a Nursing home. My teacher decided that we will go to the Nursing home first because she knew we will love the hospital way more, and wanted to end clinicals on a positive note. These 16 hours were comprised of 2 8-hour shifts on the weekend. We started clinicals at 6:30 in the morning. Not sure why but my teacher did say her reasons a few days earlier. Which meant I had to be asleep super early, be up at 4:30, and leave the house at 5:30. There was a huge storm the night before and it carried into the next day, so my dad drove me.
I got there early so I went to the break room where we agreed to meet and met up with my classmates. My teacher placed me with two other girls and we all worked in the long-term care unit. Working in long-term care is depressing. These people can't take of themselves so their families placed them here. Take take anything that the patients do, seriously. One of the patients used to do such heavy drug abuse, she still has hand tremors even though she's clean. She is also violent. She cussed out and attempted to punch a classmate.
These people who are in long-term care will spend their last days here. I can't blame them for how they act actually. I'm an independent person and like to do things myself. If I was in a Nursing home, I would be the patient that's constantly causing problems. I was really happy with the partners I got. One of my partners used to be a nurse and we are all perfectionists. Basically what we had to do was follow our CNA around, try to jump in, and do her/his job. So our CNA's patients were our patients for these two days.
We had at least ten patients but I'm only going to talk about a few of them. At the start of the day, we were getting patients up and out of bed. In long-term care, patients have to get up because if we don't get them up, they will sleep all day. Our first two patients. My CNA performed perineal care for the first patient. My partners ambulated the second to the bathroom screaming and he was cussing at them the entire time. He has bad dementia and he doesn't mean it. But they already knew not to take what patients say seriously. After my CNA was done with her patient, I helped her transfer him to his wheelchair and then I made his bed after. Afterwards, we transferred them to the dining hall for breakfast. The CNA students passed out trays and served food. Some of the patients love the CNAs. I said good morning to one patient as I was serving him his breakfast and he just lit up. It still makes me smile.
I served one woman her breakfast in her bed. She wanted me to stay with her and hold her hand, so I did. I might remind her of someone because she talked to me like we were old friends. I noticed that she has the most beautiful eyes so I told her she has pretty eyes and she cried. That made me want to cry. So I stood by her bed while holding her hand, and we both cried. My teacher said that every time she brings her class to the Nursing home, at least one student cries. I thought that one student was me, but another student confessed that she also cried. After that, we talked about everything from her late husbands ashes sitting on her dresser, the weather, and how cute the teddy bear that she sleeps with is. After a while, I asked if she wanted to eat her breakfast by herself, and she said yes, so I left her alone.
After breakfast, we transferred patients back to their rooms for their naps if they were tired.
Some patients weren't tired so they stayed in the dining hall. My team gave a shower to one woman. I felt so bad because she was in a ton of pain because of a health problem and we couldn't do anything. But I remember that after that, she said the shower made her feel better. She even urged her roommate to get a shower done and I thought that was sweet how she cared.
By this time, it's noon so we're getting our patients back up for lunch. We are back with the patients we helped at the start of the day. This time, we got the first one up with no problems. The second was taking a while to go to the bathroom. We were falling behind on our patients so I tracked down my teacher and asked her for help. I remember one of my partners asked our patient on the toilet about the pictures on his wall. He used to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force and served in Vietnam. Even though he has dementia, he still remembers war stories and he told them to us. He even insists that he's still part of the Air Force.
Just like before after they ate, we got them down for their naps. I mainly spent my spare time answering non-emergency call lights. Working in long-term was difficult but the fact that I still had a smile on my face lets me know that healthcare is an ideal fit for me. This Nursing home is severely understaffed. Six CNAs quit due to the management being poor, so you're constantly moving and times goes by quickly. One minute, it's 7 am and then you look at the clock again and it's noon.
I liked working in long-term care but I wanted to learn something new. My partners agreed, so my teacher placed us in Rehab with a different CNA. In Rehab, patients stay for a little while and then they leave. We still encountered plenty of problems. For most patients, we served their breakfasts in their room. Others we transferred. One of our biggest problems was transferring a very large patient using 3 girls. I wheeled him to his room. He misdirected me. I don't know if it was on purpose or not. After he misdirected me, he told me the right way back to his room and called me stupid. I just sighed and wheeled him back. My family thought that was hilarious after I told them that story. I asked him he wanted to be transferred to his bed and he said yes. I can't transfer him myself especially since I'm a CNA student so I had to find my CNA and some help. We used the Hoyer lift but it's broken so it went really slow and didn't work like it was supposed to. But we still got him to his bed. And yes, he was calling us stupid and to go faster the entire time.
Rehab compared to long-term care was kind of boring. If the patients want they could sleep half the day and that's okay, because they're in Rehabilitation. I don't remember my CNA saying one positive thing about her job throughout the day. She even has to bring her own equipment because this Nursing home is that bad. But when I asked her directly about her job, she said she loves it. I knew that was a lie because she said the Nurses are nice. My professor and multiple classmates said the nurses at this nursing home are gossips, take all the credit the CNAs do, and are bitchy. There's only a few nice nurses there. She even said they're so understaffed that they would hire me, tomorrow. No questions asked. She probably lied to me because she wants more people to work there so it's not so understaffed. A lot of the CNAs and Nurses are trying to get their job done quickly and because of that, they only do the bare minimum. But it doesn't hurt to say good morning or some small talk to a patient. Like I said, earlier one of the patients just lit up when I said good morning.
I actually applied for six CNA jobs at a hospital, and so far I've only been rejected by one. It's been a week and the other five application statuses still says that's they're being reviewed. Even though I would love to work at the hospital, I had to be realistic. It's hard to get in at the hospital if you have no experience so I applied to the Nursing home. I might get a job at the Nursing home because I remember I left my application unfinished because I saw that it was super late, and I had class the next day so I went to bed. A nurse who works there emailed me urging me to finish it because she said they're interested.
I would love to work at a hospital. On Tuesday was Orientation Day at the hospital. At the beginning of the tour, my teacher said we need to behave for the entire tour for the entire tour because eyes are everywhere. So if a nurse or doctor sees you talking while my teacher is talking, texting during the tour, or whatever, they will write your name down and you will never get a job at that hospital. This is the same thing during our clinical hours at the hospital which are this weekend. The CNAs and Nurses will report your performance and how well you did during clinicals. So you need to always be on guard and ready to prove yourself.
This hospital we are doing our clinicals at, is a beautiful hospital. It actually looks like a hotel. Unfortunately they require a year of experience. Luckily the hospital I applied for, said they prefer six months of experience but it's not a requirement. However if you do a good job during clinicals, you may be offered a job. It has happened before.
I'm an ambitious person and I really want to be a nurse. I have two classmates who are always disruptive and loud during class time. So when they were constantly talking during the tour, that revenge was amazing. Plus, the fact that they did it to themselves made it all that much better. All together, I loved clinicals. Even though I was extremely tired by the end of my shift. But the fact that I still had a smile on my face, tells me that healthcare is perfect for me.
Overall, I loved every minute of it and it was all so fascinating. Also I need less than a 1,000 xper points to reach 7,000 and redeem for an Amazon card. I plan on buying this shirt to congratulate myself on graduating from the CNA program. It will be a gift from me to me.
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
1Opinion
this was fascinating