Confusing First Clinical Experience

Hello there! Long time no post. I know. Shame on me. I have been SLAMMED with school/work/kids/sickness for the past few weeks. Only a few more weeks to go until this crazy semester is over then it is on to the next one (which will hopefully be a bit more relaxing)

I had my first clinical experience for my CNA program yesterday and I left feeling sad but at the same time elated. It was actually a very strange feeling.

I have heard stories about CNA’s. How they are lazy, give bad care, and just don’t care about their job or the people they are caring for. The facility that we are doing our clinicals at is a VERY nice facility. When you walk in you get the feeling you are in an expensive hotel rather than a nursing home. I mistakenly thought this facility was going to be different. Boy was I wrong.

The CNA I was assigned to was absolutely terrible. I know it isn’t my place to judge after only three hours with her, but I don’t have to be an experienced CNA to know how awful she really is at her job. First of all, she told me to go feed one of her patients. I sat there and chatted with this lady as I was feeding her while CNAss sat in the corner on her cell phone the entire time. When I finished up, CNAss walked out of the room and left me there alone. The resident asked me for her cell phone. I tried to find it but couldn’t and went to hunt down CNAss to see if she knew where it would be. I finally found her shoving a huge piece of cake in her mouth at the nurse’s station and when I asked her about the phone she told me to look on the nightstand as it should be on the charger. I go back in, find the charger but not the phone and in comes CNAss. She rips off this lady’s sheets, throws up her gown completely exposing this poor lady to everyone that walked by (yes, the door and privacy curtain were WIDE open) and says “Mrs. So&so, where’s your phone? We don’t know where it is. I guess your daughter took it. Take it up with her when she comes in”. I was shocked but didn’t know what to do and sheepishly hung my head and walked out of the room with CNAss.

Next, we run into this little old man strolling through the hall in his wheelchair. CNAss starts chatting with him. She was actually pretty friendly and I thought, maybe she just had a bad moment. We collect trays from the residents rooms and when we were done, she again walks up to this man, bumps me on the shoulder, says “watch this” and says to him “Mr. Confused, do you remember talking to me today” He looks at her and says “No, when did we talk? Who are you?” and she starts laughing and walks away.

Finally, she takes me into a room to get a resident dressed and into his wheelchair. She goes in, rips off his sheets, starts rudely quizzing him on what he is going to wear, rolls him over to find he had wet himself and rolls her eyes while letting out a huge sigh. She mumbles something about needing the wipes and again, walks out of the room with me standing there holding this man on his side, door wide open, residents naked butt hanging out all over the place (yes, I covered him). We get him cleaned up and in his wheelchair (the whole time she is laughing and mumbling something about paying her cell phone bill) and she disappears, yet again. I hunt her down, again, and ask her where this gentleman needs to go. “I don’t know, wherever he wants” was her response. I go back in, ask him where he would like to go and take him there. CNAss is nowhere to be found so I find the linen closet, gather up new sheets and start changing and cleaning his bed. His roommate was in there reading a paper and asks me to open the curtains and the blinds and close the door. I say “sure thing, I would be happy to” do as he requests and get back to changing the bed. He puts his paper down, looks at me and says “I just have to tell you, you are such a joy to be around. You have really made my day”.

That was the point I started feeling confused.

It was such a nice thing to hear and he actually ended up making my day but I barely said two words to this man. If me just being nice makes his day what does that say about the care he is getting there? Is he normally not treated with courtesy and respect? What about everyone else there? From what I have seen, there was no respect to be found.

I left with a smile on my face because I found that I really liked working with the residents a lot more than I thought I would. I was so proud of myself for not freezing up and being able to get in there and do what I needed to do. They were so sweet and it really made me feel good to be able to help them, but I also wanted to cry. I HATED seeing the way they were treated. I couldn’t believe that there would be people working there that acted that way. I just don’t understand why you would do that job if you hated it so much. I mean, you could probably make more money working at Wal-Mart than being a CNA and not have to work as hard. It isn’t fair to the residents to get a nasty CNA like that.

I was excited to do clinicals at this facility because it was such a nice place and I knew they would possibly be hiring a few of us students after we were tested, but now, I’m not even sure I want to do this anymore if I have to work with people like that.