Fun Facts

The recent economic crisis may have got you thinking that your career is under serious jeopardy and that maybe switching to a more stable job will be the key to your success.  If you had been planning to get a foothold into the healthcare industry, then becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant or CNA may be one of your options.

A CNA is known by many other titles, depending on the place where you intend to work.  In the United States, they may also be called as a Nursing Assistant-Registered (NA/R), a State-Tested Nurse Aid (STNA) or a Patient Care Assistant (PCA).  The basic role of the CNA is to do routine tasks in place of the LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) or RN (Registered Nurse).  This is to help them do the tasks that only they can perform, such as administering medication, formulating care plans, assisting surgery room preparation and nursing assessments.

The CNA’s basic duties are to assist the patients with regard to their personal and room hygiene, exercise, feeding, checking of vital signs, as well as preparation and transport of patients to treatment, surgery or examination rooms.  If there are any significant changes in the vital signs of a patient, the CNA should report this to the attending nurse of doctor immediately.  In an emergency situation, the attending CNA should be able to administer CPR or to initiate a Code Blue, to alert medical staff for assistance.

To become a CNA, one must first undergo formal training by taking CNA classes.  Ask your local hospitals or nursing homes if they offer any courses, or search the internet for ones you can take online.  In case you prefer to take online courses, it is best to go with one that gives hands-on training during internships.

CNA classes will take you roughly 140 hours, but you must also need to go through an internship before you are eligible to take a certification exam.  Some nursing homes and hospitals will offer free training for aspiring CNA’s.  This is good if you are on a tight budget, as you get to work and train at the same time, but this also means that you will have to stay with the hospital for a period of time after you get certified.

Although you may be able to work as a nursing aid without certification, there are certain tasks that you will not be allowed to do due to issues on legality or liability.  It is therefore recommended that you take the CNA exam to get certified and be able to make most out of your potentially good career in healthcare.

There are a lot of cna training classes available across the nation.

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Many of you must have heard about the “Lady with the Lamp” – Florence Nightingale. If I were to say that Florence Nightingale is the apt synonym for “Nursing”, it is not an exaggeration.

It is this lady, born in a rich family in the UK, who laid the foundation steps for the noble profession of nursing and got fame only for her pioneering service, especially to the wounded soldiers at the camps during the Crimean War.

What is nursing?

It is a profession in the health-care industry, where the primary focus of a nurse would be to take care of the patients and render all possible assistance such that the patients recover from the ailments and return back to optimal health such that they can maintain themselves with no further external assistance.

With the increasing need for specialized assistance, the definition of nursing has been extended to include not just individual patients, but also the families and the communities at large.

As a nurse, it is not necessary that you should work only in a hospital or a clinic. Specialized nursing services for old people, infants, or people with physical challenges, either at their homes or in dedicated centers also come under the profession of nursing.

As a nurse, it is immaterial whether you are catering to the needs of a single patient, family or a community. However, the underlying concept is that of service and assistance till the patient gets back to normalcy.

Before dwelling further into the aspects of Nursing as a profession, one should understand an important point. Just as a mother is to an infant and a teacher is to the child, Nurse is to a patient. This must be borne in mind, when you are aspiring to take up this noble profession.

This is one reason why the nursing profession is best suited for the women than the men, because the qualities of compassion, care and understanding will be relatively more among the service-minded women in the nursing industry, though men are also equally capable of taking up the profession of nursing.

The profession of nursing has been recognized world wide and there is huge and perennial requirement for people in the nursing industry. Though the motive is service to the needy and suffering patients, the payment is also relatively better and depending upon the place and the patients one needs to look after or service for, one can expect a decent salary ranging from a minimum of $30,000 per year and more.

As a certified nurse, you need to work under the guidance of a registered nurse, who is equivalent to a semi-qualified doctor, and follow his or her instructions in connection with the services for the patient.

Nursing, though a profession with a decent salary, should be taken up with an extra bit of passion and humility as the motto is Service to the patients.

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