My cubicle-misery has me brooding over returning to school once again (in my late 30’s) to obtain a skill set that will allow me to work in the healthcare field. My liberal arts degree has landed me office jobs over the years (which are fine, but find myself feeling caged and bored). I dropped out of nursing school 16 years ago, only to ruminate about going back. So here’s my question for anyone who might work in this field: Would it be crazy to take a 75-hour CNA class (3 months long), then work as a CNA while perhaps getting my RN in the interim? I’m nervous about doing this, mostly because I realize CNA’s do the grunt work and I’ll be taking a pay cut (at least for awhile). How do you balance the cushy office job (good pay/good benefits/good PTO) with wanting to work with sick people and probably take a cut on all of the above-listed perks?
Or maybe this is a pre-mid-life crisis… do I play it safe or finally embark on this crazy longing…
Check the local hiring climate for RN’s in your area. (I don’t know of anywhere CNA’s can’t find jobs, but as you note, it’s hard work and low pay, so I wouldn’t suggest CNA as your final destination, personally.) You’ll hear a lot about “the nursing shortage”, but at least in my area, despite the fact that hospitals need more RNs, they’re not hiring much because of budget cuts and hiring freezes. Added to this, many experienced RNs are coming out of retirement and looking for jobs, which makes it very difficult to find something as a new graduate with no experience. But that’s going to vary by region, and the only way to know what it’s like in your area is to investigate. Call your local nursing school and see if they keep stats on what percentage of their grads are employed as RNs within a year of graduating, and realize that numbers from 5 years ago aren’t good enough - you want to know what the hiring is like NOW. If you can call or email some hiring managers in health care facilities near you and get a response, that would be good, too. Are they hiring new graduate RNs, or only RN’s with experience? Do they have internship programs (not common here) or other assistance with transition to work after school?
But, as for the specific question in the OP, working as a CNA while you’re in school to be an RN is an excellent strategy. The hardest part for most of us who weren’t CNAs was learning to be comfortable in a hospital setting, and the “morning care” (bed baths, changing sheets, etc.) that CNAs do most of these days. Anyone can memorize the side effects of drugs - it takes a certain amount of experience to perform a diaper change on an incontinent bedridden 360 pound patient with dignity and grace.
Plus, if you can find a job as a CNA and work there while you’re in RN school, it’s a good way to network yourself into an RN position when you’ve graduated. It’s not the done deal it was in years past, but most of my previously CNA classmates have found RN positions with their same employer, sometimes even on the same floor, while many of us who weren’t CNAs are still looking.
If I were to do it over again, I would have worked as a CNA after my first year of nursing school. In my state, at least, 1 year of the RN program qualifies you to get CNA certification, so I wouldn’t have done a separate CNA program first, but I would have gotten that cert after my first year and gone to work as a CNA while I finished the RN program.
I don’t know where you are, but here and probably many places, if you work at a nursing home, they will train you as a CNA for a year (or other time period) commitment to the facility. That means paid training (yay!) and a shorter training period.
Another option you may consider, if you get your CNA through a program, is to look into home health care. I do eldercare/companionship care, do not have a CNA, do not do anything medical at all, but the pay is better than many facilities, the work much easier, and the hours infinitely more flexible. If I ever figure out how to go to nursing school, it would be an excellent part-time job because I could work around my school schedule.
Hospital CNA job, on the other hand, means the possibility of tuition reimbursement…a definite benefit if you’re paying your own way. Also, if you get hired on at the hospital here, you don’t have to have a CNA–they provide training.
Good luck and hang in there.