Certified Nursing Assistant profession as viewed and experienced by simple individual. Learn about daily duties and challenges CNA face at their work places and why this profession is most beneficial for your spiritual development.

1. CNA Profession From Inside
Certified Nursing Assistant, or as abreviated CNA, is a health care worker trained to
perform certain medical procedures and assist with basic life needs. In the past 12 years
I have worked for 8.5 years as CNA in all kind of facilities in the US health care system
and would like to share some of my insights as well as a few details on this extreme
profession - just another view from inside. One of the reasons is that I have repeatedly
seen people to quit this job shortly after they started it, just because they had little or no
idea on real CNA work. Another reason is to make all other people aware that there are
still humans, who put care for others as first priority in their lives. In this publication I will
describe the work environment and challenges in the most common place for all nursing
assistants to work at - the nursing home.
Nursing Homes Residents
There are people of all ages living in the nursing homes: elderly, who have lost ability to
take care of themselves; handicapped; people with severe illnesses, bound in bed for
the remainder of their lives; humans artificially maintained to stay alive, just because
they failed to take control of their lives and put someone else to take decisions on their
behalf. But you can also find here individuals, purely abusing welfare system, since they
are too lazy to work. Most of these people do appreciate Nursing Assistant's work and
the care given, but there also are some extremely difficult people, no one in the 'normal
society' outside wants to take care of, who can turn your life in real hell. Hence, it is very
important for the all CNA-s to have full control of their personality, ego and mind, before
getting in trouble.
Daily duties challenges
Anyone, who has ever stepped beyond nursing home's lobby, has faced the more or
less usual for each nursing home smell of urine and other body excretions. This is what
turns back many who want to start this profession and is the first challenge for all. The
main task for CNA-s is to assist residents with ADL ( activities of daily living ) and
provide all the routine care as:
• dressing and undressing the residents
• turning and repositioning bedridden residents
• feeding
• cleaning up residents' body excretions ( urine, feces etc. )
• bathing residents
• changing linen and making beds
• transferring residents from bed to wheelchairs or other chairs and vice versa
• answering residents' calls for help
• observing residents conditions and reporting if there are any changes
• charting in special books for all the work done
The Nursing Assistant job is accompanied with constant stress due to:
• lack of time: Remember, that you may have a dozen people ( normally for day

2. shifts is 8-12 people ) and at certain times several of them could be calling you at
the same time.
• working in an infectious environment: People in the nursing homes are prone to all
kind of infections and infectious diseases are something common there.
• dealing with very difficult personalities, who are always "right" according to the
law: Sometimes Nursing assistants could be exposed to extreme abuse from such
patients.
• dealing with the administration and outside visitors: Some people want to promote
their own ideas on the residents direct care that might be detrimental for the ones
they are concerned about. Usually these are people, who have never had their
'hands on' in this kind of work.
• dealing with 'problem' co-workers: Many people 'bring' their life problems to their
work place, which affect more or less their co-workers. There are plenty of
problems in a nursing home to bring more with you. Due to excessive and
prolonged stress, some of the CNA-s simply burn out and turn to real danger for
all others.
As you can see from all of the above, the Nursing Assistant job is a very demanding,
physically and emotionally, job that requires being always in higher state of body and
mind to successfully complete all work and challenges. There is really lots of lifting
involved in CNA work and back injures are very common among them. All these make
CNA profession one of the most extreme on the todays labor market.
Finding Nursing assistant / CNA job
1. Nursing homes. As I previously mentioned, the most common ( and best for
beginners ) place to start is a nursing home. I strongly recommend this for the simple
reason that this is the place one can master most of the skills needed and, opposed to
home care, there is always co- worker to help in extreme situations ( and there are
plenty of such on a daily basis ). There are two options to work in the nursing homes:
being an employee there or working for a staffing agency. My preferred is the second
option, but I also had periods of time as full time employee in a few nursing homes.
Those were periods when I needed a stable income. There are three types of
employees: full-time ( 32+ hours/week ), part-time ( certain days of the week or week-
end ) and flexible ( also called "pool" or "PRN" ), as needed.
What is the difference between being an employee and working for agency?
Working for a staffing agency means, you should be able and ready:
• to drive to different places in a wide area
• to work any shift in order to make sufficient number of hours
• to quickly adapt to different environment, equipment, paperwork and policies
( nursing homes policies differ from each other ).
From the above you can make the conclusion: "Why to work for agency, when it seems
to be more stressful?". Yes, it is more stressful, but at the same time helps you to
develop flexibility, better reaction and sense to all job related matters. The more places
and people you see, the wider your horizon is and the more qualified you become. And
another point, for me personally, is that working at one and same spot for months is

3. boring. And, with a staffing agency, your pay rates are usually higher. The normal pay
rate for Nursing Assistant / CNA jobs in the nursing homes is in the range of $ 9-12 /hour
depending on experience. At times, with agencies, I have gotten up to $ 16 / hour.
Recently, here in Florida, the nursing homes use lesser and lesser staffing agencies, but
they still remain personnel source for hospitals and mainly for home care.
2. Assisted living facilities.
Many assisted living facilities, here in Florida, still hire CNA-s, but they usually have non-
certified staff to care for their residents due to specifics of the work ( no medical care
involved ). The CNA working there are usually certified in administering with medications
and are called "med-techs". Of course their job could be combined: passing medications
and residents' direct care.
3. Hospitals.
Hospital CNA-s are rarely involved in intense physical work. Patients here come and go
within short period of time and what they need is just a little help around. This kind of
work includes lots of "light" tasks, walking around, taking vital signs and a lot of charting
on the computer. But some hospitals have long term care units ( for example for people
with tracheotomy on constant mechanical ventilation ) where the work is the same as in
the nursing homes.
4. Home care.
As I previously stated, this kind of CNA work is for experienced nursing assistants ONLY
( lack of experience may have serious consequences and cause severe damages ). The
shift duration may vary from 1-2 hours up to 12 hours and the work may include all CNA
duties from the nursing home. And since this is "one to one" care in patient private
houses, the nursing assistants should be experts in their job as no helpers could be
available around. The CNA-s also need to have excellent communication skills and
personalities to promote medical care and easy the clients' conditions. Such jobs could
be obtained through Home Care Agencies of privately through newspapers adds or
specific websites ( Craigslist is the most common and used source ).
5. Other job sites.
These include: doctors' offices, rehabilitation centers, special care facilities ( for addicts,
behavior centers, Alzheimer centers and others ). They all have specific rules and
require specific skills to be deployed.
6. Hospice jobs.
Hospice care is delivered to patients in hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living
facilities, patents' homes and hospice residences. Death is the single most important
event in humans' life on Earth. For this reason it should be taken care of by the most
loving, with open mind and heart, caregivers. Only those, who know about God Love
qualify for this kind of care. Only such caregivers can help patients in their last moments
in physical body to open for God and allow God to enter their heart and soul and finally
free them. The most powerful prayer to experience God's healing love is God Yoga and
it could be forwarded to anybody.

4. A good CNA is not the one who blindly obeys all the rules and regulations, but the one
who obeys the only commandment from God: "Love all!".
Working as a CNA is of utmost spiritual benefit for all those practising it, since it is but
practicing love toward others in real life.. CNA work considerable speeds up individuals'
spiritual development and opens their hearts for all and for God above all. Therefore,
often some of the nursing assistants start feeling God Love in their daily lives.
Author Resource: Georgi Stanev is webmaster at a family website dedicated to share
happy life recipes and offer free for download spring wallpapers as well as love
greeting cards for all occasions in life.