Advice for CNA noobs! :)

We had a couple of new trainees this past weekend at work and neither one of them were certified yet or had experience as a CNA. As my seasoned co-workers and I gave them advice, I got inspired to write a post for new CNAs. We were all noobs at some point, and relied on the advice and direction of the veteran CNAs who trained us! This is a vital medical position that's growing like crazy and will always be needed, so there are going to be new CNAs pretty much forever! I can't speak for all CNAs but I know I love training and mentoring brand new nursing assistants as they feel their way into this demanding, stressful, and ultimately rewarding career.

One of the first things you'll be indoctrinated with as you start your CNA training is HIPAA. That's the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. You can find out all about it at the US Department of Health and Human Services website. Basically what you need to know is that HIPAA is a HUGE deal and you have a responsibility to protect your patients/residents privacy. This means you don't give anyone any identifying information about the people you care for. Not your momma, not your friends, and you DEFINITELY don't post it on the internet. That's why you'll notice that when we tell stories on CNA Humor, we omit names and identifying information about our residents/patients and our workplaces. If anyone from work--whether a co-worker, supervisor, or even the family of a resident/patient--reports you for publicly discussing or posting identifying information about a resident/patient, you're done. Your job as a CNA is pretty much over. That's how big a deal HIPAA is. A good rule of thumb is if you have to question whether or not something is in violation of HIPAA, just assume that it is. It's better to be safe than sorry. Side note: You also can't talk about residents/patients to other residents/patients. This can be a tough one especially in nursing homes where residents and nursing staff share common areas. Residents may overhear or see things and want to ask about them later. Just remember, if a resident asks you about another resident just say you don't know anything about it. End of story. SIDE SIDE NOTE: Fines for a HIPAA violation can be $250,000 for you AND your facility. Keep that in mind y'all!

As a brand spankin' new member of the medical team, you'll experience enthusiasm like you've never felt before. We all did. You love your job and you want to take care of every little thing for these wonderful and inspiring people you're responsible for because they NEED you!

Now I'm not saying that we seasoned CNAs don't still feel this way about our residents, because if we didn't we wouldn't still do this job. We love our residents and look at them as if they were adopted grandparents. However, what I'm about to say is real talk, y'all.

You will not be able to answer every single call light as soon as you see it.

The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can actually get some work done. In a perfect world every hospital and nursing home would have a 1:1 nursing staff to patient ratio, but in the real world most of our facilities are overcrowded and understaffed, and you have to become a master of prioritizing. Each resident is important and deserves to be treated as if they're the only one there, but the reality is sometimes you just have to let a call light ring while you deal with a priority. Now some of you might be wondering, what is a "priority" and what isn't? Well, I'm going to use the names of some 80's rock gods to give you examples: if Jon Bon Jovi is down the hall wanting his bag of popcorn popped, and you haven't finished a round yet, Mr. Bon Jovi can wait until the incontinent residents on the hall have been changed before he gets his popcorn. If Axl Rose is ready for his bed bath but Dee Snyder is in his wheelchair ready for bed and is a fall risk, Axl can wait until you put Dee to bed. If Brett Michaels' blood sugar bottomed out and he needs a snack right away, and you come out of his room to find Joan Jett's call light on and you know she's safely in bed, you make sure Brett has his peanut butter crackers and orange juice before you answer the call light. In a real world nursing home situation all of these things and more would be going on at the same time, and you have to learn to roll with it. The ability to look down your hall at the beginning of your shift and prioritize all of the things that are going on in the moment, as well as the things that come up along the way, comes with experience and knowledge of your residents. It can be intimidating, as well as overwhelming to deal with all the commotion and figure out what to do first, but you'll get there. Even my examples are almost a perfect world scenario, because most likely while all this is going on your charge nurse will be telling you to do something completely unrelated, a co-worker will be asking you for help transferring Henry Rollins, who is a lift, and you'll hear a page over the intercom that a CNA is needed in one of the rooms on your hall. Just breathe, prioritize, and take care of each task as quickly and carefully as you can and before you know it, your shift will be over and it will be someone else's problem. Lol.

Every veteran CNA can tell at least one story of having to take a hit for the team. Sometimes they come as a surprise and other times you see them coming but for the resident's safety you can't dodge it. The reality of working in a nursing home is you will, at some point, get hit. You will also get bitten, spit on, scratched, and pinched. You will have your hair pulled and your feet rolled over by wheelchairs. These things are all part of caring for people, especially those with Alzheimer's and dementia. Your residents will resist care, react out of fear and confusion, and sometimes they'll just be straight up pissed off. I'm not going to try to tell you how to avoid these situations, because nine times out of ten, you can't. What you need to remember in these situations is not to take this behavior personally. First of all, put yourself in the resident's shoes and try to tell me you wouldn't act the same way! Second of all, your combative residents wouldn't act like that under normal circumstances and probably would be ashamed if they knew what they were doing. The next thing you know, the same resident could be trying to hug you and kiss your cheek. Patience and compassion are necessary traits for a CNA, but especially when dealing with a combative resident.

There are so many more things I could tell you about your new career as a CNA, but the topics I've covered here represent what I think are the most important things you need to know about working in a nursing home. This is the best job I've ever had, and by far the most rewarding. Care, compassion, and common sense are pretty much the three C's of this field, and I'm glad to share my experience and knowledge with people who are thinking about or working on starting to work as CNAs. If any of you have tips or advice you'd like to share about working in a nursing home, or especially in a hospital, since I don't have the experience to cover it here, please leave it in the comments! We have a lot of newbie CNAs on the page whom I'm sure would appreciate the help and advice!