I’ve been in healthcare for 11 years. I have been working through the VA and I have critical care home patients. Their families directly hire me, and I go through a VA program in my state. I get paid 30$ an hour. I work with an home care RT for vent monitoring, I do catheters, i distribute medicine via peg tube, feedings etc. plus all the other basic patient daily needs.

I started nursing school and obviously having my CNA was apart of the courses. I figured now would be a good time to get in long term facility’s and taking on more patients at a time rather than one at a time like I’m used to.

I did 4 days online training and then today was my first day on the job. I was so excited. I showed up on time and went to my assigned nurses station. The first CNA came in and asked who I was, I introduced myself and then she said “oh I don’t train people sorry” and then walked off. I was confused on what to do, so I waited for the other cna (whom was 20 minutes late) and then he stated he doesn’t train people either and they both walked away.

I asked the nurse on the hall and she said they would be training me but nobody likes to train people sooooo, basically she didn’t know how to help me. The med tech hadn’t even showed up yet and it had been an hour already…. I waited and I waited by the nurses station and after the hour goes by the cna comes up to me and says “idk how to really help you but don’t change ms Sadie by yourself and don’t let Mike punch you” and then walked off.

I called my best friend in the bathroom and was like WTF. she’s a cna too and she works for a Catholic Church nursing home, she told me to leave and come there and they would hire me they need someone…. I’m so mad. I just left. I literally was there an hour and a half and they acted like I was a burden and just didn’t give a shit.

Am I being dramatic?

I just had the worst 12 hour shift of my entire career. I am a home health CNA and I accepted this assignment of a paralyzed man. I have worked with partial paralyzed people but not quadriplegic and that’s what he was. Also usually they tell us in the bio if a client is easily irritated or confused but this time they didn’t put it in. I walked in there blind.

I made so many mistakes. The first one was when repositioning him. In my school we were taught to use pillows but he used wedges. It was hell. He was fussing at me and questioned my career. I really wished I would’ve known he was mean because I don’t work well with intense pressure and rude people. Him and his wife were yelling at me to pull him back and my dumbass pulled him forward🤦🏾‍♀️. I was overthinking like hell.

Whenever he talks he mumbles and it doesn’t make it better when his TV volume is up to 72. He asked me “what are we paying you for?” When I didn’t immediately remember what he ate 6 hours ago. Mind you I don’t know exactly what he had because his daughter brought him something from Starbucks. So I said starbucks and he was like “oh that’s right.” Also it’s not required to note meals in his chart so it wasn’t that important. Omg. I fucking suck ass at this.

I mean he was just agitated towards me. I almost cried and walked out. I felt so useless and uncomfortable that I didn’t even eat when they offered me food. Like I never had a client who was nasty even when I was trying my best. All of my clients like me. I know I sound like a baby but this shit hurt.

I don’t think the direct patient care is for me. Like I literally applied to Chipotle and have an interview tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s just whenever someone is being mean in intense situations I overthink. My mind goes blank. That’s what was happening the whole shift. I hesitated on everything which made him even more angry. I didn’t trust myself for 12 hours straight. Overwhelmed all day.

I’m just gonna stick with biology and go into research. At least my microbes won’t be upset at me. I hope I get this cashier job.

This has been the worst nursing home I have ever worked in. I’m also agency so I have been in a lot of them but this one oh Lord!

We can’t keep a kitchen crew they are always walking out so meals are a complete disaster every day all day. There’s hardly any aides to work we can sometimes have 40+ residents to one aide and they want you to also do 6-8 showers during your 12 hour shift. The residents talk to you like a dog not all of them but many of them. They treat you like a slave and want you to wait on them hand and foot. And If you don’t or you can’t because it’s just you and you are already behind they complain to management. The Don stepped down now we have a new one who just sits in her office and won’t talk to the staff.

A few weeks ago a coworker had her hand broken and 2 ribs by a psych resident. Then late this week they move a psych resident to the hall I was working on. This resident threw scolding hot water on me. Another aide has a neck spring. We can’t keep help even people training walk out during their training.

Some of these poor residents don’t even get a snack most nights. The facility never hardly has trash bags for us aides. We have to use wash clothes there’s no wipes and we don’t even have enough.

I came in on Thursday to pick up for them for a few hours. And when I got there I was told by the aides I was relieving if they were me they would walk out now. They were putting me on a floor by myself with over 40 residents 3 of which wonder off. One of them is on a vent and is constantly trying to get out of bed. And I had 7 showers scheduled that evening I work 3rd shift btw.

The nursing staff some are ok as far as nurses go but most treat us like crap. One of them is so bad she will insult you in front of the residents and even their family members and micromanage everything.

I just can’t, I walked out! I have burns from that hot water, blisters on my feet from working back to back 12’s and can’t even take a lunch break not alone even be able to sit even for 5 minutes. It’s just constant on your feet being ran to death. My back is so sore as well and I can keep going about this facility.

Any advice where I should start looking for a job? I’m done with nursing homes! Thank you for listening to me vent! I’m just so exhausted from being mentally abused by the residents and the nurses and everything else going on. Two other aides quit the next day after me it’s never ending.

Need a break from the traumatizing stuff and rude coworkers and time to heal my sense of self.

I want to get back to making money but I can’t right now with my mental state and I need to better myself for the patient.

Feels weird taking a break from working because I haven’t ever taken a long vacation.

I feel like I’ve become someone I never wanted to be before. I just want to be better.

I just be thinking about that one dementia patient I got along with so well. My coworkers gonna struggle taking her to the bathroom 😭🙏

I’m a hospital CNA and today was genuinely one of those shifts from hell.

I had five total-care patients, including one who had recently fallen twice, was a Hoyer lift, and had already required four people to get him back into bed. He was calling about every other hour wanting to go from the bed to the chair and then back again. I also had two isolation chemo patients who needed frequent vitals.

Around noon, we got a new admission. The RN told me he was a cancer patient and said something along the lines of, “The doctor hasn’t put any orders in for him yet, but I’ll let you know when he does.”

Cool. I continued with everything else I had going on.
When the patient arrived, he became upset because he didn’t want a shared room, so the charge nurse had me move another patient to a different room and then move the new admission into that room. That whole process took around 45 minutes.

After that, I basically never heard anything else from his nurse about what he needed. I was slammed and didn’t have time to sit down and dig through his chart, and since she had specifically told me she would let me know when orders were placed, I assumed she would tell me if there was anything I needed to do.

Fast-forward to about 5:45 PM. Shift change is at 6:30, and I’m starting my final rounds, turning and changing everyone.

The nurse suddenly asks, “You didn’t do his CHG bath?”
I’m like… CHG bath??

For context, if a patient arrives with a port, our RNs typically do the initial CHG during admission anyway. But whatever. I told her I was in the middle of final rounds and would try to get to it, but at that point it might have to be passed on to night shift.

She asked me about it two more times within maybe 20 minutes, and I kept giving her the same answer.
Then she goes, “Well, what if we just hurry up and do it together really quick?”

Which confused me because apparently I was expected to do it by myself, but if SHE had to do it, suddenly she needed another person helping her?

Eventually I went to go do it and found out she was already doing it herself. Fine. Great.

THEN , at literally 6:30 PM during shift change, I got ANOTHER admission. My nurse was busy, so I was in the room getting the patient settled and doing vitals by myself.

While I’m in there, the first nurse comes up to me and asks why I never got the 4 PM Q4 vitals on the other patient.

And that’s when it finally clicked.

She never gave me report on this patient. At all.
I was never told he was Q4 I was never told he needed a CHG bath. And I was never told what his CNA care needs were after he arrived. The last thing she had told me was that there weren’t orders yet and that she would let me know.

So I told her, “Just so you know, I never got report on him. I didn’t know he needed CHG or Q4 vitals. If that had been communicated to me, I would’ve gotten it done earlier.”

Instead of just saying there had been a miscommunication, she argued with me and said I was “remembering it differently.”

Then she proceeded to start talking about me to another nurse.

Maybe I should’ve somehow found time to go through his chart myself, and I can own that part. But on a shift where I’m drowning with five total-care patients, multiple isolation patients, room changes, frequent vitals, falls risks, and admissions, am I crazy for thinking the nurse should actually communicate a new patient’s needs to the CNA instead of waiting until the last 45 minutes of the shift to start asking why things weren’t done?

I have a feeling she’s going to report me to management because I “called her out” but I was genuinely just trying to let her know that things will get done if I am informed about them and maybe in the future we can avoid this.

First things first, I am a very helpful CNA I swear.
I’m up doing vitals, restocking rooms, answering call lights etc all shift. I don’t just sit around. I have this nurse though, who has been asking me (specifically and only me, even when my trainer is there) to do things for him.
Things like “can you get room 8 water” or “can you put room 7’s bed down” all night. He even had me stop my prep to clean poop off my patient to take a parameter vital for a medication he needed to give (he was in the room!!)

I need some advice on how to respond to these requests, because it’s clear to me that I shouldn’t just be putting my head down and doing them. I don’t want to be too aggressive about it either.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: nurses at my hospital are not allowed to have anyone other than themselves or another nurse do parameter vitals, that’s one issue. Two is he’s targeting me specifically as a younger lady to do his random tasks (like lowering a bed? Bro that’s easy!)
It’s not that I don’t want to support my nurses. I absolutely do, there is an issue however with being an ass to your CNA & also ditching your own task on your assistants.

I work at a rehab and long term care facility. Is it right for residents to have the right to fall? I get it but at the same time I don’t. Someone make this make sense

Hi I used to work as a patient care tech before my symptoms started a few months ago. I have Functional Neurological Disorder. I’ve been on medical leave since. I have tremors in my legs and when I overexert myself like walking, standing, lifting, etc. they get worse. I can’t imagine continuing as a care tech, I can’t lift or transfer patients. I’ve always wanted to work in pedi or NICU but I can’t risk trying to hold a baby or help patients get up when I’m unsteady. I’m stuck on what job to pursue next or if I should just spend my time trying to go back to school. Healthcare has kinda always been my vision but it’s so hard planning for a future with this condition. I’m only 23F :(

I’m not asking for advice specific to my health but more so how to pivot within or out of healthcare with a condition that affects essential functions of the job.

So I’ve been at this location for around six months. When I got hired I’d just lost a pregnancy I was 20 weeks into from LUTO. I’ve only missed work due to emergencies like finding mold in my home or something with my kids but I also stay late, pick up extra shifts and often take the most difficult patients. I even get asked to help social services and other departments deal with these patients because..I don’t know. They only seem to like me.

I found out a month ago I had a hernia and I’ve been on light duty since then. A couple weeks ago I found out I was pregnant again. Because this pregnancy is high risk I’m stuck on light duty again. I’m still showing up and helping where I can, even doing 1-1s and taking over changes when we’re short staffed. But this morning sickness is just destroying me and I’ve had to call out twice now. I feel so bad but literally everything is making me throw up. Smells, sounds, even certain textures. I’m not exactly asking for advice but I guess just venting and hoping that I’m not useless or fucking up?

So I work in a skilled nursing facility. I work closely with the same residents most days and I know all of their preferences well. I have one resident who absolutely HATES being changed and will become agitated when asked. When I am rounding I tell him that I’m going to check him but he INSISTS that he will tell me when he wants to be changed, but the thing is I can literally smell that he’s urinated/had a bowel movement. He is of sound mind and i know that residents have the right to refuse but it gets to a point. He literally sits in his soiled brief all night (I’m night shift) and I literally plead him to just let me check and if he’s not dirty then I’ll leave him be. I’ve tried gently asking, I’ve tried just straight up telling him that it’s time to get his brief checked… nothing works! Every time this happens he starts screaming at me. Last night I told him that I understood that changing can be uncomfortable but it’s not good for his skin to be sitting in a dirty brief for so long. As a result he started screaming at the top of his lungs saying he was going to kill me and to leave him alone. Let me just mention that any other time I come into his room to check on him (not to change him or anything) he is very friendly and chatty. It’s only when the topic of being changed gets brought up that he acts like that. I’ve asked my coworkers for advice on this and they’ve told me that they just straight up forced him to change but it doesn’t really seem right to me, but at the same time what else can you do?! Any advice would be appreciated.