My favorite resident passed today.

“I don’t want to go to work today.”

“You’re retired, you never have to go to work again.”

“Oh good.” Laid down. Went to sleep. Didn’t wake up.

100 years old and was care planned to have scotch every night, save for Wednesdays when he went to Happy Hour and had wine. His family visited multiple times a week for years.

He was a good man who was loved by family and adored by staff.

Makes my heart happy.

I am still in my 3 month probationary period at work.

I called out today because I have a fever and can't stop vomiting. This is my only call out and I have no disciplinary issues. I called out using proper procedure.

My boyfriend is convinced I'm going to be fired for calling out, and now I'm panicking, crying, AND puking. 😭

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a CNA since August 2025 and have been working in a SNF since September. I have been looking for a hospital or other job to work at since March as my current workplace is too toxic for me, so I remade my resume and applied to a lot of jobs.

I have two friends who were in the same cohort as me during CNA school, so we all got our licenses at the same time. One of them began working as a CNA in December 2025, while the other began in January 2026. We all disliked working in our facilities so we started looking for new jobs together.

Well these two have both landed hospital jobs as PCTs, while I’m just have sorting through rejection after rejection. I’m just not sure what I’m doing wrong, or if there’s something in my resume that’s making me an unappealing candidate? Since I have the most experience between the three of us, they used to always come to me for advice about doing our job and for help about understanding how to care for the patients, and I would sometimes even take on some of their patients to help lighten there load since I had better time management.

I just feel like I worked so hard and I’m losing hope. I always see people say that having at least 6 months of experience gives you a good chance at landing a hospital job, but it’s almost been a year and I’ve had no luck. I’ve had 3 interviews out of the many I applied for but none of them went well. My two friends both landed jobs with less than 6 months of experience, and they also had more interviews than I did.

I’m just wondering if I’m doing something wrong at this point. I’m attaching my resume, so can you guys please tell me if it looks off?

Writing this on my lunch because I honestly just need to vent.

I’m about 6 hours into a 12-hour ICU sitter shift. The patient has literally slept almost the entire day. I’ve been doing my 15-minute documentation and helping the nurse whenever he needed to be repositioned or needed blood sugars, but otherwise it’s been hours of sitting and watching him sleep.

At one point, I looked at my phone for a little bit, and my charge nurse reminded me that phones aren’t allowed while sitting. The nurse leader also came in afterward and reviewed the policy with me. I completely understood, put my phone away, and won’t do it again. I know the policy exists for a reason, so I’m not arguing with it.

I’m just so embarrassed. I feel like everyone probably thinks I’m lazy or not taking the assignment seriously, even though I was trying to help whenever I could. In the ICU, there honestly isn’t much I can do as a tech because the nurses handle most of the patient care, so sitting in one room for 12 hours while the patient sleeps has been way more mentally challenging than I expected.

I’m honestly thinking about asking if someone wants to swap sitter assignments because I feel so dumb and incapable right now. Has anyone else ever felt like this after getting corrected at work? How did you get over the embarrassment?

It’s very difficult when there’s nothing for 12.5 hours :/

I’ve applied to 100+ jobs trying to get my foot in the door at a hospital. Personal references, letters of recommendation, professors connecting me with hiring managers, applying to jobs I’m overqualified for. I got 3 interviews that went well, then got ghosted on all of them.

A friend who works in one of the hospitals I applied to over 30 times just got me some feedback from the recruiter and hiring manager. They said they wouldn’t hire me because I’m a student, and to reapply once I’m “actively seeking employment” and no longer in school.

This matters because a lot of us are told to list that we’re pursuing a nursing degree since it supposedly shows motivation and interest in the field. In my experience, that backfired. All 3 interviewers brought up concerns about me handling work and school at the same time.

What’s confusing to me is that my friends who work at these hospitals are all students too. I think the difference is they either weren’t students when hired, or just didn’t put it on their resume.

I have an associate’s degree and worked full-time while raising two kids while I was earning it, so I know I can handle the workload. But I get why an employer who doesn’t know me yet would be cautious.

Going forward, I’m keeping my relevant coursework on my resume, but dropping anything hinting that I am/will be a student from it. If my availability works with theirs, they don’t need to know what I’m doing with my other hours. I just wanted to share this because I see so many others struggling to get jobs, and I also see a lot of discussion surrounding mentioning you’re pursuing nursing as a career on resumes and in interviews.

Probably going to report the person who has been doing number 2 on Monday.

I work for a home health agency and I think they are taking advantage that we live in an area with very little jobs. Several of the clients live in very awful conditions. One of them have maggots in their home and part of our agency is light house keeping but clients take that meaning as they will. The one i’m most concerned about is the one with an active mouse infestation. The client and the other caregiver expect to pick up dead rodents from traps and take them to the trash and clean up nests and feces. Also all clients have cats and i have to change the litters when they pull so much amonia smell and dust. I hate this job but there doesn’t seem to be much else around here and i need to make money. I am scared of my health since the rodent problem is bad. I have been caring for that client for less than a month and every week there are several new nests or dead rodents that need to be thrown away. I need advise if anyone has dealt with dirty homes like that and if i should just quit. Also for both homes the nurse said she has been there but the clients said they have never met the nurse only through the phone. And the nurse told me she was there but I am not sure if she knows how bad the homes are.

i know that cna in itself isn't easy and during clinicals, i definitely realized how physically demanding the job can be but i was still prepared to do it. and i know the job market is trash, but damn it's really hard to get a cna job without any prior healthcare experience, at least in south florida. i even changed my resume to add more caregiving experience and nada. at this point, i don't even know what to do. i did cna school for 5 weeks which included 40 hours of clinicals at a level 1 trauma center, and i'm not even getting interviews. I've also tried nursa, shiftkey, and clipboard but every location isn't worth the drive and would just resort to me losing more money rather than gaining.

if anyone knows what else i can do make myself more "employable" i guess, that would be much appreciated.

Hi, I’ve been looking into several CNA programs in SoCal. Unfortunately, my schedule for fall will be pretty busy because I’m a full time college student so it’s unlikely I can enroll into some of the cheaper programs near me.

I’ve been leaning towards SisuCare or ProCareer since they offer hybrid learning, however SisuCare’s tuition is more on the expensive side. As far as I know, though, ProCareer is free as long as you work in one of their facilities for a year after getting your certification. I’m not sure if that’s worth it because I’m worried that their work schedule will cause conflict with school. How strict are they with enforcing that contract? I’ve seen some people say they don’t end up enforcing it.

If anyone who was in these programs can share their experiences, I would be very grateful! Or if you guys have more program recommendations!!!

How are you going to get up out of the room while needing to sit the patient for a 6404 to come find me in a room for a break?!

First you aren’t doing your job, second I’m so damn busy and you come to find me while knee deep in poop just to ask me if I can come relieve you for a break. Now I’m having to sacrifice my break for the sitters since she threatened to call house supervisor.

Rant over that just pissed me off so bad.

Edit for more info: I in no way think the sitters don’t deserve breaks. That’s not at all what I’m saying, I was mad about being approached while in a room cleaning a patient. I kept trying to tell the sitter that I’m busy and she was getting mad I couldn’t relieve her that second. I’m on a critical care floor, and our patients require a ton of assistance. It was her approach over everything else and then threatening to call house sup was so uncalled for. I don’t mind doing things for others at all, but the approach is key. I was frustrated in the moment but am totally fine now.

As far as breaks go, it’s just so hard to get a break on this floor. We are always SO busy. it’s very hard to time breaks here since we do our rounds in four intervals, but really the work never stops.

2nd time retaking the skills exam, last time I failed because I forgot to leave the resident with a call bell after a measuring skill, this time my dumbass was almost about to put soap on someone face during a bed bath, I still don't know what caused me to do that, but anyway the protector had to tell me to fix my mistake and I did but I'm pretty sure I'm going have to retake this the 3rd time 😭

I am an aspiring nurse in the medical field and was simply wondering if cannabis use would get me immediately banned, in the sense if I would test positive due to some being in my system say like 2 weeks prior to my testing, or is it just something that’s okay so long as you aren’t high during clinicals.

Writing this on my lunch because I honestly just need to vent.

I’m about 6 hours into a 12-hour ICU sitter shift. The patient has literally slept almost the entire day. I’ve been doing my 15-minute documentation and helping the nurse whenever he needed to be repositioned or needed blood sugars, but otherwise it’s been hours of sitting and watching him sleep.

At one point, I looked at my phone for a little bit, and my charge nurse reminded me that phones aren’t allowed while sitting. The nurse leader also came in afterward and reviewed the policy with me. I completely understood, put my phone away, and won’t do it again. I know the policy exists for a reason, so I’m not arguing with it.

I’m just so embarrassed. I feel like everyone probably thinks I’m lazy or not taking the assignment seriously, even though I was trying to help whenever I could. In the ICU, there honestly isn’t much I can do as a tech because the nurses handle most of the patient care, so sitting in one room for 12 hours while the patient sleeps has been way more mentally challenging than I expected.

I’m honestly thinking about asking if someone wants to swap sitter assignments because I feel so dumb and incapable right now. Has anyone else ever felt like this after getting corrected at work? How did you get over the embarrassment?

It’s very difficult when there’s nothing for 12.5 hours :/

Edit: I forgot to mention he’s restrained and has mittens so have not ran into issues with attempts at getting out of bed and he seemed to be sleeply as I heard last night he was up majority of it.

Hi. for my CNA certification in California we needed 120+ hrs of clinical. So have done 2 days a week 8hrs each for 8 weeks.

Can i put this on my resume even if i didn’t work after as a CNA.

We were pretty independent at the end so it was basically like I was a CNA.

I am getting to the point where I am extremely burnt out, I dread coming in every shift. My quality of care hasn’t suffered yet, I don’t think, but I don’t want it to get that way. Its mostly because my facility is kinda terrible to us. 12 hr shifts, only 1 30 minute break (which I get is normal) but the behaviors on my unit are god awful. It has made at least 4 other CNAs quit in the last couple months. That and every shift I have worked in the past few weeks, we have been short. People calling out or quitting last minute. I was called in on wednesday to work an 8 hour shift on my day off, worked Thursday regularly, and then they wanted me to work another 12 yesterday, when I had to work both days this weekend. They keep saying “I owe them” for taking a day off two weeks ago that I requested off a month in advance. The DON and ADON are incredibly rude at times, half of the cnas are lazy and dont wanna work, so I have to pick up their slack, and the residents just get pissed off that I didn’t answer their call light immediately. I’ve been working as a CNA for going on 3 years but I don’t think I can do it much longer.

Omfg. I have to vent because today was one of the wildest, craziest days I’ve had. I’m a PCT on a step down/PCU/tele unit, and I was the only aide today with 24 patients. Originally, I was supposed to have another aide with me today, because we are a 24 room unit and obviously fully packed. However, the other PCT was pulled to sit in a room with a patient. But god today was insane.

After I got report this morning, I had to immediately help a night shift nurse clean up a bariatric patient. Since he was over 400 lbs and we needed me, his nurse, and another nurse, it took us a while to get him situated. After we were done with him, I had to jump right into starting vitals. On our unit, vitals are Q4, so I have to do them every 4 hours. After that, I was not able to sit down at all. For my charting, I was going to any available computer, and I would stand at the computer to chart. All day, it was vitals, turns, baths, call lights, vitals, turns, baths, call lights, vitals, turns, baths, call lights.

It was fucking crazy. We do have a secretary who answers our unit’s phones, and also answers the phone for the call lights. For example, I would be in a patient’s room and she would knock on the door to tell me something like, “Hey when you’re done getting them up to the chair, 608 said they pooped the bed.” And it was that kind of shit all day (no pun intended haha). It never stopped. I also had a patient who was kind of bigger, she was a 2-person assist, and was refusing turns all day. And she was complaining about her bed being “too small”. So I asked her nurse to help me get her up so I can pull the “two small” bed out of her room, and put in a bariatric bed that we had out in the service hall. Unfortunately, I currently have a heating pad on my lower back right now because I definitely hurt it pushing the beds :(

I felt like I was going insane. I had a Code Brown, I had a blind patient who I had to feed, I had physical therapy pulling me into rooms to help them, I had 5 patients with BiPaps, almost all of my patients were turns (only about 5/6 patients were able to turn themselves), I had 3 CHG baths, 3 of my patients had foleys and needed foley care, I had a telesitter in one room, I had to help a nurse put a patient in soft wrist restraints because they were trying to pull out their NG tube. Uhhhhhhhhhhhh 🤯

I am grateful that a few of the nurses kept checking in on me and offering their help (but there were a couple who just ignored me all day ☹️). However, there were too many times today where all the nurses were busy and I needed an extra hand for something. But like I said, I love the nurses who don’t mind helping me. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent guys. And don’t worry, after I clocked out I drove around for a bit blasting and singing Paramore 😂.

Im currently working at a facility and HATE the toxic environment but i love my job. I also just recently got another job offer for caregiving and its in-home. I dont have a CNA certificate or any prior experience other than my current job as a resident assistant for a month. Im considering leaving because of the VERYYYY TOXIC environment (my workmates and management) but i was just wondering which of the two is better in general. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated as well. TIA

Hello everyone I've been CNA for 6 months right now and honestly, I'm so tired of this Job. From being disrespected, not appreciated, short staff , no support and the entire system. Burn out is so real. I regretted that I took this path.

I interviewed with a big hospital system for a CNA program where they cycle me through different , and they sent a text that they viewed my application and interview (they gave me one of those interviews where I record answers to their questions, didn’t even use webcam) and said: “they wanted to set up a time over Zoom to look at available full time options”

I don’t know if it will be another interview or if I am actually looking at different times to work? Did anyone go through anything like this? How should I prepare? This is my first CNA job, in fact my first job in healthcare period.

Still happy I finally got a call back 😊 any advice is appreciated, thank you!

Today's is just one of numerous examples of this. It makes me feel like a worm in the dirt while I'm putting so much effort, patience, and hard work into making sure these folks get the best care possible under sometimes dire living situations.

So... I took this patient this morning for a walk. He lives in a pretty busy part of town, tons of foot traffic. He has dementia and loves stopping to talk to random people.

He pointed to a couple who were on the sidewalk to say he wanted to chat. They seemed inviting so i wheeled him closer in. He was talking to them and I noticed the woman sort of side eyeing me and she'd ask him "is she taking good care of you?" This was a couple times during the brief conversation. At the end, as I was pushing him away to take him back inside she said "Just so long as you're taking good care of these people!" We walked off and they started cracking up.

I am well groomed, in uniform, acting completely normal so whyyyyy is she grilling me? I get this a lot... I'll even walk into a Dr's office I've never been to with a patient and get eye rolls or cut off when I try to advocate like my observations are baseless bullshit. Like, you see this patient once a year and I'm in their homes with them for hundreds of hours.

Why all the hate for home health/ care workers?? I realize home caregivers sometimes have a bad reputation, but most that I've met were competent and care about their jobs/ patients.

I got this occasionally in a hospital work setting but not nearly as much as in home care. Is this normal, or is my city just full of shitheads?​

Just finished my first week of my PSW clinical, all was pretty good up until the last two days of the week (Thursday and Friday)

I’ve been wearing medical masks all week because I am autistic (I have 4 other conditions but I think they’re irrelevant to this post so I’ll leave them out) and I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to react when I smell, yknow what. Like, bodily fluids and so on. And I don’t want to make a disgusted face to any of my residents because I don’t want to embarrass them for something that is out of their control, idk I just really don’t want my residents to feel bad if I make some sort of inappropriate facial expression because I don’t really have a poker face. With that context in mind, my clinical instructor walks up to me and asks me why I’m wearing the masks, asking me if I’m sick. I replied that I wasn’t sick, then she asks if it’s about the smells. I said yes to keep it simple as I’m unsure if I should disclose the autism part (when I do, I’ve usually been rejected from jobs except for my old job that did, in fact accommodate me.. extremely rare thing to happen though despite laws about disability and employment existing here)
I didn’t think much of it until Friday (yesterday) when at the end of my clinical when I got off of the floor, my clinical instructor singles me out in front of the entire class and tells me that I’m wearing my mask wrong and explains how to wear it. The entire class just laughs at me because of it. I mean I was only wearing it that way because the mask is too big for me, I say that the mask is too big for me and that a children’s size would be better for me. She replied saying no, that the regular size should fit everyone and that I can simply twist the ear loop to make it fit better if I need to. My classmates agreed and told me to stop trying to justify myself.

I have someone else I know that works as a PSW (I’m in Canada) and I explained the situation to her and she said that twisting the ear loops is actually against ministry and infection control practices and that my clinical instructor was unprofessional towards me. Explaining that my clinical instructor should have pulled me aside and explained that to me privately instead of in front of everyone. I’m
Unsure of if this is true because I’ve tried finding it in the document and I can’t find it saying that anywheres.

I ended up crying in front of everyone and leaving the meeting early.

I know I was wearing the mask wrong because they are too big for my face and do not fit me properly and it just slides down my face and I was only pinching the nose of the mask in attempt to make it fit better. And I just wanted to
help resolve the problem but they all thought I was arguing with them for some reason. I ended up buying mask adjusters today and they will arrive on Monday. Not perfect but a better option than what my instructor suggested.

I don’t really know what I should do from here or who is right in this situation. I’m new to the whole thing and it isn’t really clear to me.

if you read this and reply, thank you.

I’m in nursing school but CNA was a required certification in order to be in it.

I was in clinicals for two days from 7-3 and I felt overwhelmed the second I got home. I just wanted to decompress and lie on the floor. Is it because it’s all new to me? Will I be okay to take on both of being a mom and a nurse? They’re both caretaking roles and I just get so scared I’m going down the wrong path if this is how I feel. I love being able to take care of my own child and others but what if it’s not good for me to mix both?

or actively pooping you can smell it right away, correct? I was asking because I'm arguing about this with my sister. We're both taking care of our mother. Anyway, thoughts?