As I approach the halfway mark of the first semester of my senior year, I have begun finalizing my college and career plans. The task of figuring out what you want to do with essentially the rest of your life is daunting, but with the expansion of career exploration courses at D155, students can navigate their interests before they graduate.
Course selection has just started this past week and I thought that it would be a great opportunity to share one of the different pathways students can take in our district to explore their own interests.
It has been just over four months since I received my Nursing Assistant certification from McHenry County College, and I could not be more grateful for taking this course in high school.
Like many other students, I started out with some idea of wanting to go into the medical field, but I wasn’t exactly sure what that would look like. I thought I could be a nurse or a doctor, but those goals seemed nearly impossible with the lack of exposure that I had to that environment.
Up until that point, I had never volunteered in a hospital or even deeply inquired with my family members who are in the field about their careers. I had truly put no effort into my career interests because I had no clue where to start. All that uncertainty felt like it was holding me back, but now I realize that those feelings were my main motivator in discovering my true passions.
Aside from the uneasiness, I also found myself creating a lot of unnecessary stress by not using my readily available resources. This is when I started to utilize the college career center coordinator, Mrs. Gasparov, along with my counselor, Ms. Kratzke.
Both of these women as well as other figures helped me find programs and volunteer experiences that aligned with my interests and goals. It was through meeting with both of them on a regular basis that I secured a spot in our district’s CNA class at Crystal Lake Central. The process of getting into the class was a bit stressful, because it was completely full. I thought I was going to have to pay more money to take the course at McHenry County College. Luckily, a few days before the first semester ended, someone dropped the class and I received their spot.
I had to move a few classes around and drop some courses, but it was well worth the sacrifice given how much I gained. Right off the bat, I was able to figure out if the medicine pathway was worth pursuing. In addition to the class itself, the numerous weeks of clinical rotations at the hospital provided many opportunities to test if this field was truly meant for me.
The CNA class itself instructs and prepares students to take the Illinois Nurse Aide Written Competency Exam after successfully completing the program. It can often be confused with a nursing class since we wear scrubs in clinical settings, but a nursing assistant and a LPN (licensed practical nurse) or RN (registered nurse) are completely different jobs with different responsibilities.
It is not uncommon for CNAs to become nurses as it is a natural progression of the nursing profession. However, you can go straight into nursing school if you prefer to or have no interest in being a nursing assistant. The only reason that I would encourage someone who is interested in nursing to become a CNA first is because I believe it lays down the foundational skills needed to be a well-rounded nurse.
As a CNA, most, if not all, of what you do is hands-on care. You feed, change, toilet, and ambulate your patients on a regular basis. While you are not allowed to admit medicine, it is still your responsibility to be aware of your patient’s conditions so that you are best prepared to take care of their needs.
All of the intense, high-stress, and unexpected situations that you will find yourself in as a CNA will only improve your problem solving skills which is certainly a requirement for being a nurse or any kind of medical professional.
In my own experience, I was faced with many challenges that tested my critical thinking skills. With the help of my classmates and incredible teacher, Nurse Andrea Miculinich, we all struggled through it together. The type of work we got to do was very hands-on, after all, and I learned a lot about the legwork behind taking care of another human being.
In this class, we got the choice of doing our clinical rotations in either a nursing home or hospital. I chose to do my clinicals at Northwestern McHenry Hospital, but I currently work as a CNA in a nursing home, so I have experience in both places. The reason that I chose to do my clinicals in the hospital was due to having more familiarity with that environment.
Working in a hospital as a CNA, depending on the unit, can be less physical in my opinion. I had many patients who did not require a lot of assistance versus performing total care for someone in a nursing home. Most of what I did in the hospital was taking vitals, cleaning out the garbage/linen bins, occasional feeding, and toileting patients.
I was able to perform all 21 of our state-required skills, but some of them were not realistic in a hospital environment. Skills such as nail care, shaving, and even showering/bathing (bed baths are a substitute if patients can’t shower) were not often used, but definitely important to learn.
These grooming skills are better fit for a nursing home where you help a patient with a majority of their daily activities whereas in a hospital, you could be caring for a patient in a short timespan before they get discharged or moved.
I also felt that at the hospital, I learned everything by the book in a procedural manner. This is not to say that all hospitals run according to code and nursing homes are a free-for-all, but when you consistently take care of the same patients in a home, you form a routine that is more specific to their personalities versus taking care of everyone the same exact way.
This is not a bad thing by any means – it’s just a way of adapting to your patients’ needs depending on their environment. This skill of adapting to care for patients is a core skill that is learned through taking the CNA course – it also is applicable outside of the profession.
After completing the course and passing my state exam, I immediately looked into places that would hire a 17-year-old CNA. As a nursing assistant, we have to use mechanical lifts to transfer patients, but you have to be 18 to operate the machine. Most hospitals don’t hire CNAs under 18 years, so I had to apply to a nursing home that I had heard about in class. I truly did not have any kind of preference where I wanted to work, but if I had been old enough to work at a hospital, I would have most likely gone there since it was where I did my rotations.
After working at Valley Hi Nursing & Rehabilitation in Woodstock for the last three months, I can confidently say that I enjoy both working environments. Since I had never gone to a nursing home during rotations, I was a little intimidated about working in different conditions, but I truly appreciate the differences and similarities between both.
My favorite part about being a CNA at a nursing home is that I get more time to learn about my patients and their lifestyles. I believe this makes me the best healthcare provider that I can be. Getting the time to understand the type of people I get to care for is beyond rewarding and it truly feels like one big family working there together.
All of the different opportunities and challenges that have come from taking this class have taught me more than I could have asked for. Going from working nearly every day for the last two years at jobs that were not meaningful to working 1-2 days at a place that I love has had a tremendous impact on my life. I get to do work that consistently challenges me and makes me feel purposeful.
This class is perfect for students who are interested in pursuing some type of medicine or biological sciences (biology, anatomy and physiology, etc) as a career. Besides having a natural science inclination, you must have or want to develop your interpersonal and communication skills. Most of all, I believe that someone with a strong work ethic and a great deal of maturity would excel in this or any kind of medical profession.
Even though this class has been heavily promoted, I still encounter many students who have no idea that it exists. That is why I implore anyone who is struggling with their post-secondary plans to seek out information on not only the CNA class, but the other career-oriented classes that our district has to offer.
Taking this course helped me decide what I want to major in for the next four years and my plans beyond that. I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a solid foundation on what I want to do, which made my college application process a lot less stressful.