A certified nursing assistant is someone who helps the registered nurses aid patients back to health. They have many titles in different countries and regions, which include State Nurse Aid, Nursing Assistant- Registered, and even Patient Care Assistant, but they all have one role to fulfill: helping out a patient who cannot perform activities of daily living very well. In the healthcare community, nursing assistants are a godsend to registered nurses and practical nurses. This is because the need for nursing assistants is extremely great- especially in hospitals or facilities that have patients who require long term care.
Nursing assistants need a lot more than basic theories and concepts- though learning all about the basics certainly helps in the clinical area, a lot of the nursing assistants strengths usually lie in the clinical area. Nursing assistants need emotional strength since a lot of the patients will try to release their tension by talking to them. Some patients who are chronically or terminally ill need someone to talk to during their last days and it is the nursing assistant who has to listen to these things while treating their patients with utmost respect. With every patient they work with, they must make it a point to treat human life with great dignity. Nursing assistants must also be physically strong in order to work. Their job involves a lot of heavy lifting and carrying, so they must make it a point to take good care of their bodies by not eating junk and exercising regularly.
CNA certification is needed by most employers before work. You can obtain CNA certification through a school, hospital, facility or the Red Cross, depending on the state you currently live in. The certification is usually attained by entering a training program for weeks to months- it basically depends on where you want to obtain your certificate from. In order to enroll in a training program, you must have a high school diploma or equivalent and must have an above average mark on basic math and science.
The fastest way to becoming a certified nursing assistant is by entering a hospital as a trainee. The hospital pays for your immediate hands on education and will even promise you an opening in the hospital as a regular nursing assistant. The pay is less than what you might expect from those who graduated from a school though and not all states allow hospitals to train nursing assistants without proper accreditation. The Red Cross offers their own nursing assistant training program and it usually takes several months before you finish their program. In their facility, you will learn more than just the nursing assistant basics; you will also be taught how to provide emergency care to a patient as this is their forte.
In all the schools, once you graduate, you will need to take an oral and clinical exam to prove your worth. If you pass, then you get a cna certification stating that you are now ready to work.
