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Working as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) is not a glamorous job, but it can be an easy way to get into the healthcare field. If you are thinking about becoming a CNA, there are some skills that you’ll need to master in order to be successful. Here are four skills that you’ll need to learn in order to be a CNA.
1. Vital Signs
One of the most important things that CNA’s have to do is take vital signs of patients. Doctors and nurses rely on these vital signs being accurate when it comes to making a diagnosis or determining the effectiveness of a treatment. Because of this, getting the vital signs right is critical if you want to be successful as a CNA. You’ll have to be able to check a patient’s blood pressure and get their pulse with a very low margin for error. It’s not complicated, but it does take a special knack to get it done for every patient.
2. Documentation CNA
Developing your ability to document everything is also important when you’re a CNA. No matter what you do as a CNA, you’re going to have to document it. Did you just help a patient get up and take a shower? You’ll need to document that on their paperwork. If you drop a tray of food off for a patient, you’ll have to document it. This ensures that every patient is taken care of and that they got everything they were supposed to get.
3. Personal Hygiene
Working as a CNA is all about helping patients with personal hygiene. It’s not exactly a glamorous job as you’ll be working with bodily fluids on a regular basis. You’ll have to help patients go to the bathroom, bathe, brush their teeth, and handle other things that they can’t do themselves. If you’re going to do well as a CNA, you need to develop these skills and figure out how to do them easily.
4. Other Personal Care CNA
Besides helping clean up a patient, there are other areas that you’ll need to develop in order to be the best CNA you can be. Your number one job is to make sure that the patient is taken care. This could mean that you have to help him eat dinner or go and get him a drink when he needs one. You might have to help move a patient to another bed or transport one to another room for tests. Regardless of what you’re doing, it’s important to make sure that the care of the patient is your top priority. Treating your patients as humans is critical to your success overall. It will make the patients feel more at ease and they’ll feel more comfortable with the entire process. When you make patients feel like they’re at home, they’ll be much easier to deal with and they might even enjoy their time in the hospital or extended care facility.
Working as a CNA is often a thankless job that requires a lot of hard work. However, if you like dealing with people and you don’t mind doing something that isn’t very glamorous, working as a CNA might be for you. It doesn’t take a lot of formal training and there is always a demand for people who can fill this role.
About the author: Cara Littleton is a CNA who recently contributed to the guide to the Top 10 Best Online Certified Nursing Assistant Programs.
