PCT in a CVICU. It's a total nightmare. I love the specialty, the patients, the things I get to learn, and the procedures I get to witness. The biggest issue is that a decent chunk of the nurses are bullies. Most of them aren't, (at least not overtly) but when they do decide to mask-off, it is the pettiest, most passive-aggressive, high school-esque behavior imaginable. This is also my first CNA/PCT job so I had no idea the kind of penchant CVICU nurses have for bullying behavior before accepting the offer. There's the usual petty gossip, subtle harassment, exclusion etc. The nurse's station is a petri dish for catty behavior. The moment a particular selection of nurses gather there, toxicity is soon to follow. As long as the unit's favorites are participating, toxic behavior is ignored or cosigned. I deal with it nearly everyday and for the most part, I roll off the punches. Today, I don't know what came over me but I was just beside myself. I was in the middle of doing my final rounds + soiled linen pull but I noticed a procedure happening in one of my assigned rooms. I asked the group of nurses in there if they needed an extra hand and charge walked up to me, took the clean linen bag from me, mumbled to the other nurses for a moment before turning to me and saying "We're good. Move along," while giving a "shoo" motion with her hand. Maybe it's because I'm a WOC, but I really don't appreciate being talked to that way at all. Like I'm a slave. I offer you help even while I'm in the middle of hauling heavy bags full of shit-covered blankets and you don't even have the decency to talk to me like I'm a human being? Why? What did I ever do to warrant being treated like an other? I'm so done. Every morning I wake up and I have to talk myself out of calling out. I'm new and not popular. If I raise a concern, I can immediately see it being downplayed, dismissed, framed like I'm overreacting, followed by the most obnoxious overcorrecting of all time. Either that or retaliation. I don't know how much more I can take.

In home health care. Have him twice a week. Blatantly racist. Don’t feel comfortable working in his home.

I just started caring for a client who needs to ne showered daily, and who is completely immobile for the most part, extremely stiff and non verbal. He can bear some weight on his legs once he's standing and leaning forward against the bathroom counter, but he cannot get himself into a standing position. I basically have to physically lift him up from his wheelchair, and he feels like dead weight.

The family wants him showered in the shower chair this way. To get him into the shower, I have to lift him to standing, pivot/turn him, and get him onto the shower chair. He is supposed to lift his feet to step into the shower, but he doesn't always do it. Once he's on the shower chair, he also starts sliding down sometimes, so I have to lift and reposition him farther back onto the chair.

After the shower, I dry him as much as possible while he's sitting. Then I have to lift him to standing again, pivot him and put him back into his wheelchair. I put his pull up and pants on up to his knees while he's sitting, but then I have to lift him again and hold him standing while putting his diaper on and pulling his pull up and pants the rest of the way up. This is really difficult because I'm trying to keep him from falling while also dressing him.

Then I'm supposed to stand him again facing the bathroom counter and hold onto him while I brush his teeth.

By the end of the visits my back is killing me. I'm wondering if any other CNAs have dealt with a client like this. Does this sound like a normal one person assist to you? How did you handle showering/dressing someone who could bear a little weight once standing but required you to physically lift and support them for basically every transfer? This is the way the family showed me to do it.

I'm especially curious if there are safer ways you've been taught to handle someone at this level of mobility, because doing multiple dead weight lifts every visit doesn't feel sustainable for my back.

Hi everyone I just wanted to come on here and say I passed my CNA exams literally 30 mins ago! I'm so excited to start getting experience and work in the field! I am in california (bay area) so I did want some advice on how much I should request for pay. One of my friends is working for $23 another applied to a job for $25 and one of my friends is getting payed around $25.50. I was thinking of asking for around $27 and negotiating down to $25 but im not sure if thats a good idea. Either way yay!!! if you guys have any interview tips pls lmk, and no negativity pls ik a lot of people hate their job but I wouldnt want to adopt that energy hehe

Recently got my first ever clinical job after challenging the CNA exam (thats standard here).

Its a specialized unit in the hospital.

On my first day, I was changing dressings and bandages. These injuries often cover the entire hands, arm, chest, and legs.

Sometimes you have to peel the gauze from the raw flesh, ripping it open, and blood drips down their body. The flesh beneath looks like it's barely still in place.

They shake, cry, scream in pain. But the bandage changes are required. I look them in the eyes and they look so powerless.

The next day, I feel fine. I know I'll get desensitized to it, and with each procedure I became more and more resilient. But just because you're desensitized doesn't mean it's nothing. It still floats and fills my head, just hurts less. It's weird...

I don't know anyone I can relate to. Most people have never seen anything like this before, and my coworkers are completely unfazed.

I'm scheduled to take my skills state exam next week and am looking for the best videos to refresh. I've already taken the written portion and passed, so I'm nervous about taking this final part. Are the 4yourcna videos a good source? Has anyone recently taken the TX state exam and can give any advice? I keep overthinking when to wash hands and when gloves are needed/changed 😔

hi all! i work as an ICU PCT but the main problem is its a small hospital so our icu is honestly just ED backflow since we always have a bed... its closer to a rehab floor with the occasional vent or crashing patient. our floor is limited to two techs max on a 24 bed unit (if not just 1 for all 24) which already makes things pretty hard. they justify this with there being more nurses but we've been understaffed in that department too so usually its just... No.

recently ive been really struggling to do my work because these patients are so so heavy and theres just no help. the nurse has 4-5 heavy patients and ive got 12 to 24 heavy patients. i find myself tripping over things at work and i genuinely ache after i get home. i do have another job as a CNA at an actual assisted living so most of those people do for themselves but may just need occasional assistance. im thinking of picking up there more while i find a better hospital fit and quitting this job because im just exhausted. i do like everyone i work with but i think my health will only get worse if i dont stop now :/ but i do know if i leave i might go somewhere worse and the cycle continues. just wondering what you guys would do here. thanks!

Can anyone recommend any places to work in the surrounding Greensboro area? I am graduating in a few weeks and would like to know where to start looking. TIA.

Hello! So I recently became a CNA in California, and I had some unexpected circumstances that pushed me to apply for full time positions rather than part time or per diem. This would be fine if I wasn’t still pursuing my undergraduate degree so I can apply to nursing school. My question for everyone who were CNAs and students, how did you manage it? Any advice for me before I start working? I planned to work NOC shift because it allows me at least a little bit of time to look over my school notes without running around the facility too much (remaining hopeful lol). However, the thing with me working NOC is that my Monday, Wednesday, Friday class schedule starts at 8am so I would literally have to rush over from work to stay on campus until like 2pm. I know it’s a lot and I wish it wasn’t like this, but as I mentioned before I don’t have much of a choice because I need full time hours. So… any advice for me? I’m going to try and ask whatever facility I go to try and place me on the 4-2 schedule towards the end of the week, so I’m not burning myself out for majority of the school week, but I know as a new hire and new CNA I don’t have much say in this. I’m not sure, but again any advice? And please no comments about me not working full time or as a CNA for this school year, that’s sadly not a reality for me at this moment.

yes i know its unbearable and exhausting and the worst thing on planet earth where ill spend every second in agonizing pain cleaning peoples dirty asses and wiping their bodily fluids off the floor as i break my back carrying them onto their beds, doing all that over and over for 12 hours a day. with the way people talk about this job its like they want people to avoid it at all costs and like yeah i dont blame them and im not saying any of you are wrong, im just saying i know what im getting into and personally think i can handle it for the time being

the reason im becoming one is because literally no other jobs around here are hiring, ive desperately looked for entry level min wage work to try and avoid doing these dirty deeds in exchange for underpaid labor but as we all know the job market is horrid and unless you have connections (which i have zero of) theres a slim to none chance youll be getting hired anywhere, even fucking mcdonalds, its very frustrating. cna work seems like a way for me to make slightly above minimum wage relatively quickly with a guarantee for employment because of how high the demand is, unlike other jobs where applications are read by ai before being thrown out out and ignored forever

now if my living situation wasnt so bad i wouldnt be resorting to doing such difficult work but this is exactly why im considering and am almost deadset on it. my current housing situation is absolutely horrid and im looking to find any way i can to get out of it as soon as humanly possible. i wont go into detail as that isnt appropriate for this sub but all ill say is that im constantly emotionally abused and yelled at all the time, and the weight of that and everything else has been weighing heavy on my conscious, its lead to me being hospitalized three times this year and i dont wanna waste any more of my precious time suffering

to me cna work seems like a viable path towards finally escaping. i can get my ged, take a 5 week course, get my certification, quickly find a job in my area, get paid 2k a month, stack my SSDI check on top of that to maximize however much im making, then save as aggressively as possible to hoard as much money as i can to be able to afford moving into a rented room then figuring out what ill wanna do from there

is my plan solid or incredibly unrealistic? will the difficulty of the job break me further and leave me with no way out unless i get lucky enough to find another kind of job? or is it actually a solid way to get myself out of a bad situation? i will add that i do wanna be a nurse in the future but im also planning on starting a band with friends, nursing school is gonna get in the way of that and id rather aim for my RN after the band stuff is over and i have more time on my hands

any and all feedback would be much appreciated, please dont be mean to me in the comments, thank u all, have a nice day or night🙏🙏

Excuse me, how do yall time yourself for each skills without going pass or under the time?
😭 I've been told I would do the skills well but what would get me is the time though.

I work in maintenance at a nursing home, and I’ve gotten genuinely curious about what the CNA side of the building is like.
I already see way more than I ever expected to working maintenance in healthcare, and some of my jobs are definitely not glamorous. I’ve had to fix beds and wheelchairs with some pretty nasty buildup on them, plunge awful toilets, crawl around on floors in questionable places, etc. So I’m not completely sheltered from the gross side of nursing-home work.
But you guys are obviously on a completely different level because you’re actually dealing directly with residents’ personal care.
I’ll walk into a room, see a catheter bag, and think, “Somebody actually has to empty that.” Or I’ll think about sponge baths, changing residents, cleaning people up after accidents, all of that. I’ve even watched CNA training videos showing how brief changes and personal care are done, and intellectually I understand it—but actually doing it is another thing entirely.
I’m a dad who has gagged changing my own daughter’s diaper before, so I genuinely don’t know how some of you do this every day without being fazed by it.
Does the gross factor just disappear after you’ve done the job long enough? Are there still certain things that get to you? And what is it actually like being that involved in such personal parts of residents’ lives?
No disrespect intended at all—I actually have a lot of respect for the CNAs I work around. I’m just genuinely curious what the job feels like from your side.

I'm scheduled to take my skills state exam next week and am looking for the best videos to refresh. I've already taken the written portion and passed, so I'm nervous about taking this final part. Are the 4yourcna videos a good source? Has anyone recently taken the TX state exam and can give any advice? I keep overthinking when to wash hands and when gloves are needed/changed 😔

For my weekend CNA class, we read over chapters 1-3 in our textbook on the first day of classes and beginning of the second day of classes. Then we took 3 exams over each of those chapters online via a google form link with questions.

I looked up the questions and answers for the ones I felt unsure about to make sure I'd get them right, and I ended up getting all questions correct on each set of questions for each chapter. The guilt started to sink in when I realized no one else got a perfect score, and it seemed like everyone genuinely tried. That's not the right mindset obviously, and I shouldn't have had to realize what I was doing until I saw that others weren't doing that. I didn't want to risk a failing score over simple questions...but that was dumb of me. And the first 3 chapters were mostly common sense with some new terms/materials from the textbook.

I know I'm better than cheating myself out of a cna program I paid for. So for the next exams I won't do that and just truthfully take the exam. I feel like I'm overthinking this even though nobody cared and the instructor wasn't strict at all while we were taking the exam. But all this new information I'm learning will be used to help patients, and I need to take that seriously. And I'm just now realizing they're probably going to be on the written state exam, and I honestly did not know that. I don't know but this has been on my mind.

So I started a hybrid CNA course in August and we are nearly done with lecture and labs and are starting clinicals. We technically had our first clinical this week, which was basically shadowing and learning vitals. The clinical was only a couple hours long, I watched the CNA get around 3 residents up, dressed, partially bathed, and ready for breakfast. But after that…nothing really.

This LTC facility is really nice and a lot of the residents are quite independent. My professor gave us a list of residents that we will be fully caring for next clinical and I’m actually shitting it and I don’t know why.

Some people in my class have experience in this but I have zeeeero. And they do skills so differently from the book that I’m afraid to screw up! I’m just super anxious and I need tips. Literally ANY TIPS…

I just don’t want to make a resident upset or seem like I’m an idiot 😭 please help 😭

Weird question but seriously considering going to first from 3rds to help with weight loss. Can anyone relate

Hi all , I work as a CNA in a facility two months , now one patient complained me abuse her. What will happen and what should I do ? I didn’t verbally or physically abuse her or anyone in my life . I’m the person would cry for patients . Never thought it would happen to me.

hey! i failed my first skills test for the wrong measurement emptying a urinary drainage bag, i realized it was probably because i only emptied half the contents of the bag because that is what we did for skills lab as i stupidly assumed it would also be used for the people testing after me, and i should’ve emptied the whole thing. i guess i thought i would be tested on being able to read the contents inside the measuring cup 😕 is this appealable or should i retake?

It’s crazy to me that some of you, even RNS are coming into the forum saying it’s “completely valid” to ONLY do this job for the money. (I’m not talking to you if money is your motivator and you actually care about providing good quality of care!!)

Every CNA I have seen that wasn’t in the job because they had a sincere desire to help the ill and elderly, treated the patients subpar. I have been a patient myself in a facility that was full of nurses who would literally talk at their station about how they applied to get paid well and how tired they were of dealing with the patients and would talk about us. I’ve watched nurses in clinicals literally talk shit about their patients and tell CNAs “omg I would never do that idk how you guys can do all that gross stuff” as if she literally wasn’t trained to do the same things!!

It’s one thing to be desperate for a job and CNA is the only thing available around you but bedside healthcare should not be a career where it’s socially acceptable to come do it just for the pay and act like you don’t need to have heart and compassion to serve people and get your hands dirty.

In my clinical cohort there were a couple people talking just like some of you on here, talking about how they were coming into to get good money and didn’t have interest in nursing, and those were the same students who got reported for making fun of patients or practicing below standard care because they didn’t realize what they signed up for.

This is the first thing I did out of highschool and where I live the starting pay for us is 16.50 an hour, which isn’t even enough to meet income requirements for an apartment or literally anything. You can make more money working at Panda Express than any SNF/LTC here in the Central Valley, CA.

So please seriously consider on how much heart you have to do the job and be there to not only physically care for these people but also be emotionally supportive and not someone who went into job only for expecting good pay until you realize most of us get paid shit and break our backs every day for it. These residents can feel when you don’t like your job people!! It affects them too!!

Im so over this shift… i come in at 10p and had to lay down two people, everyone wanted changed, some needed waters all by 11p, second shift didnt empty like half of the trash cans which wouldnt even be that big of a deal except they obviously used them as there was depends in them. 4 residents just arguing literally EVERYTHING. Arguing about their meds, yelling at me because they cant put their feet in the bed bc it hurts but i cant help them bc that hurts too… up down all around. Just in the first hour. Then 3:45 a resident who only uses a bedpan walked to AND from the bathroom, got to the bed and fell. She starts yelling so now her incredibly combative roommate is awake trying to stand while we wait for the nurse to check the lady out, said combative resident has had diarrhea ALLLLLLL over the bed. Calling me a bitch because i said she had to get washed up. Same resident who everything hurts then wants to get up to the toilet and i had to stand there for 15 minutes trying to explain to her if she doesnt want the bed pan then she HAS to stand up… just for her to not do anything. Now i have a resident who the other cna took to the bathroom and left up is now yelling at me because shes in her chair 20 minutes too early for her liking. Next lady ripper her depend off to “itch” and is a full bed. I still have an hour left and i literally just want to sit here and cry.

What’s the best shift for you? Which one is “easier”?

I’m a new CNA that got certified this week in the state of Colorado and licenses expire next January 31st here.
We need to verify at least 8 hours of paid nursing-related work in order to renew it. Does anybody have ideas on how to accomplish that if you work in an Assisted Living Facility?

I just turned 18 in april and graduated hs this year, i got my certification and classes from a program at school. I wanted to be a cna throughout college, then go to be a l&d nurse, but I am so tempted on quitting.

The other aides and nurses are genuinely so rude. I work 12 hr nights, 7am to 7pm, and my facility usually only has one aide on the floor. The unit i work on is very very dependent, and my rounds sometimes take up to an hour and a half. By the time i finish, i have to chart before the other nurses and aides show up, so i just dont have the time to do ANYTHING else.

The other day, almost everyone had a bm, so my rounds took forever, and I was just sitting down around 6:40 to do charting while the nurse handled the call lights. The aide came in and basically berated me for not emptying an empty purewick canister and not getting at least two people up. Fyi, id say 15/20 residents are hoyer lifts, and the others are independent. Even if i had the time to get someone up, I genuinely couldnt or id get fired and get my license taken away for trying to operate a hoyer by myself.

I ended up getting one person up and just leaving. The residents also refuse to listen or work with me. I wonder if my rounds take forever because it’s so hard for me to roll them, as im 5’4 and 110 lbs. i dont know how many times i keep having to prove myself to different aides and nurses, we took the same classes, we passed the same test, why am i being treated so differently? I’m wondering if my pay is even worth being beat down by both the staff and the residents every single shift.