Too cool for school

[emilytbm]

Last night at hot tubbing, my friends and I were talking about how now is the perfect time to go back to school since I'm not tied to a job currently.

I was thinking for theshort term, I could take a year class to become a Certified Nursing Assistant, that way I will have a better chance of getting my foot in the door of medical care (again).

All

Comments

[jenn_girl]

Some hospitals train CNA's onsite, after you get the job. CNA is basically doing personal care, vital signs, and saving the nurses when we have to do 8000 things that we can't delegate to someone without a license. It is a good starting place and a way into the healthcare profession. Medical Assistants need a bit more training. They are usually the person at the doctor's office people mistake for a nurse (most docs do not hire nurses, we are too skilled for what they need). The medical assistant is the person who takes your vitals, gets your history, finds out what is going on, takes blood, gives shots, etc, usually in a doctors office environment. Look at the local community college. You should be able to get some kind of training without having to go to one of those CHI-like schools. Talk to the unemployment office- they will know how to get you into these things, becuase they don't want to support you. Definitely fil out a FAFSA. This is the key to getting grants and loans from the colleges. Also, hospitals and

[bluebelleknoll]

I'm considering a Med Assist program. Since they're only like 10 months long and it's going to take me at least that long to get into a Radtech program

[acerzen]

This is why I thought after graduation I should attend ANOTHER grad school. Now I too am looking at getting my CNA (I am a caregiver a couple of days a week for my rent, I might as well get certified, work the rest of the week for food, and have a minor career change to fall back on just in case. There will always be a need for CNA's).

[brennaraven]

hey, Loki just went back to school. I'm in school. Going back to school is good. :)

[amye]

After having gone to school for Medical Assisting and, in a way, CNA (the first term of nursing school is basically all CNA stuff) I would totally go with MA over CNA. All of the CNAs I have seen are completely overworked and underpaid. Like the previous commenter said, they do all of the grunt work for the nurses, like transferring people, performing personal hygiene and bathing, toileting, mopping up all variety of bodily fluids... That being said, a lot of hospitals/Long term care facilities will do free training if you agree to work for them for a specified period of time. I liked Medical Assisting 5000000x better than doing CNA work. No asses to wipe, no patients to lift or strap into mechanical lifts, no feeding, no taking the patient for laps around and around the facility so they don't fall down and hurt themselves. The previous person described MA tasks pretty well, so I won't go into it again, but for me it was way, way preferable.