In the Frontline of the Battle

It may seem strange to compare what you learn in CNA School with military activities but in actual point of fact, there are enemies to be overcome and battles to be won within the often peaceful rooms of a health care facility. Negative emotion is the foe. People coming in for medical consultation are usually experiencing depression or emotional upheaval under their composed exteriors. Nursing assistants are usually the first persons who entertain patients. It becomes their responsibility; therefore, to drop an optimistic remark, a cheerful phrase now and then to rid the patient of as much of the negatives he is feeling as is possible.

Current medical findings have discovered psychological motivations to be an important factor in the cure of illnesses. In this instance we refer to beneficial placebos and the harmful nocebos. Placebos are neutral substances like distilled water that physicians sometimes administer, in the guise of medication, to patients whose physical symptoms are identified to have psychological causes. Nocebos, on the other hand, are the harmful effects that manifest in the patient because of the patient's own conviction that he cannot be cured. The graduate of CNA School has this formidable task of identifying tendencies to nocebo in the patient and addressing them to some extent.

Excellent Preparation for the Nursing Profession

Graduating from a CNA School is an excellent preparation for nursing school. This is true in many ways. First of all, the student needs to be acquainted with the basics of nursing care in order for him/her to perform well as assistants to registered nurses. As such, should the CNA School graduate plan to pursue studies in nursing, he/she will only be continuing from where he/she left off. Secondly, since the bulk of the training that nursing aides get has to do with entertaining patients and following their nurse-superiors, their emotional ability to perform all kinds of tasks with gusto is honed. They stand to learn all the benefits of humility and diligence without which no one can ever become a good nurse.

What is the Scope of their Obligations?

A good way to summarize the role of a CNA Shool graduate is to say that he/she deals with the patient in the absence of the physician or the nurse. He/she performs basic actions like taking the blood pressure and heart rate, baths, feeds and grooms the patients when necessary. He/she may even provide the patient with company. On the unpleasant end, he/she may have to put up with disagreeable and demanding patients and/or their relatives. Additionally, he/she shouldn't be adverse to doing the sometimes disagreeable things mothers do for their babies. But that precisely is what the good training consists of.

A nurse is foster mom or dad to all the sick people he/she will be attending to. A CNA school graduate can be regarded as brother or sister to those people. Because the CNA school graduate relates with patients on a more personal level they have the best opportunities to give good values and encouragement to their patients.