Are you looking for a healthcare career? If so, you may want to look at becoming a certified nursing assistant (CNA). It’s a challenging and rewarding career for compassionate and hard-working people, but if you’re unsure if you have the right stuff to become a CNA, here’s a list of qualities of a CNA that may be helpful to decide if this is a career you want to pursue.
Get started in your nurse aide training today!
Patience
Working in healthcare can be a challenging career. Working with sick and disabled patients offers many rewards but can be stressful. Patience is required from CNAs as they help their patients and encourage family members to stay positive about their loved ones. Also, CNAs must work cooperatively with their coworkers and healthcare staff to maintain a professional atmosphere in the medical facility.
Good Communication Skills
CNAs must have effective and clear communication. Nurses, doctors, physical therapists, social workers, and patients (as well as their families) are just a few of the various groups that nurse’s assistants interact with on a daily basis. CNAs frequently use medical jargon with doctors and nurses and might even give summaries that are specifically related to medicine. Exhibiting clear and concise instructions and information among staff and patients requires thoughtful communication skills.
Empathy and Compassion
Maintaining a caring bedside manner can put patients at ease to help them feel comfortable and may speed the healing process. Soft skills like empathy and compassion are essential for all healthcare positions, including nursing assistants. These two traits are consistently used by successful CNAs, particularly when working in nursing homes.
Strong Attention to Detail
CNAs need strong attention to detail in their job. They deal with data, patient charts, and forms containing pages of critical medical data that they must correctly understand and transcribe daily. Additionally, CNAs must pay great attention to their patients’ nonverbal signs and watch for changes in their physical or mental condition. CNAs may be the ones to give patients the most frequent and direct care out of all the various healthcare professionals; being aware of these facts regarding a patient’s health status can literally save lives.
Stamina & Strength
CNAs spend a lot of time on their feet. They often help patients with personal care like bathing, dressing, and grooming. These are all physical activities that require some strength and stamina. Plus, mental stamina is needed to remain attentive throughout the day to perform duties and any administrative tasks required.
Strong Work Ethic
Patients of all ages can be found in healthcare institutions. They may go through many mental states, including frustration, worry, loneliness, and depression. As a result, dealing with such patients could become challenging for CNAs since some patients may be resistant to treatment or behave uncooperatively. Being a CNA requires you to be extremely kind, composed, and concerned about these people and their problems.
Ability to Juggle Multiple Tasks
CNAs must frequently do many responsibilities, from feeding to recording patient vitals and providing family updates. Numerous patients require the attention of nursing assistants. Moving from medical duties to administrative tasks requires a solid ability to juggle multiple tasks effectively.
Flexibility
You must prioritize your patients’ needs and desires as a CNA. Your success will be aided by understanding that these needs and wants frequently change. Your duties may also vary daily, or hour-to-hour as healthcare facility operations are constantly moving. Embracing change as a positive will help you maintain a flexible and adaptive manner.
Staying Calm in Difficult Situations
Any healthcare position can include difficult situations with patients. There may be some dealing with pain, sadness, and depression. Others may face severe illness or death. CNAs must always do their best to maintain their emotional stability for other patients under their care. A calm and professional manner can make a difference for many in your care.
Time Management
Every day, the healthcare system expands and changes, and each of those days could present CNAs with various problems. You may work with eight patients one day and then have manage ten brand-new patients the following day. As a CNA, your days are unlikely ever to be the same. Some people have little trouble adjusting to this kind of dynamic workplace, while others may struggle.
Respect for Patients and Staff
CNAs encounter patients with varying perspectives on their line of work. The nursing assistant must respect their opinions no matter what the patient believes or how they behave. You can express your position if you disagree without challenging them. Nursing aides occasionally carry out activities like washing patients and gathering urine. These tasks are part of being a CNA and are vital for a clean and efficient healthcare facility while also helping patients maintain their dignity and self-esteem.
Why Do CNAs Love Their Jobs?
It might be challenging to pick a profession you love. One of the many reasons people decide to become CNAs is that this career path enables people to practice their love for working in healthcare and being a caregiver.
Emotional gratification
Being a CNA can be a tremendously difficult profession, but it is also emotionally fulfilling. Many nursing assistants become close to their patients and coworkers, creating a friendly and family-like atmosphere at times. Those with a compassionate spirit to help patients get better is one of the keys to a successful CNA career.
Supporting Others
The difference you could make in the lives of your patients is unquestionably one of the reasons that becoming a CNA is such a gratifying career option. You can contribute to and improve the lives of your patient every day that you go to work. Even the seemingly insignificant things can mean so much to your patient. There’s little doubt that not every profession can offer its workers that.
Enroll in a nursing assistant program and start your training!
Do you have some of the qualities of a CNA? You need to be proficient at all of them, but having the desire to learn the qualities, skills, and knowledge of a CNA is a great start to your healthcare career.
A great place to start your CNA career is the Nurse Aide program at Training Direct. This program is designed to help prepare you to pursue an entry-level CNA career in Connecticut, upon passing the state certification exam. Training Direct can help fulfill the educational requirements for those who wish to pursue a career as a CNA.
Our Nurse Aide program has been skillfully designed to provide students with both classroom instruction and hands-on clinical training. It provides them with the knowledge, skills, and practice needed to pursue their new career.
Interested? In as little as 3-4 weeks, you could be on your way towards pursuing a new career in the healthcare field as a CNA!
