The Title of Certified Nursing Assistant (cna) as My Greatest Accomplishment

There comes a point in time in everyones’ life when they will need help, and in some cases a little extra help. Some people need help getting around after injuries or just from getting old. Most likely they will be sent to a care center to be taken care of or to prolong the healing process. The staff who will be helping the residents with their everyday tasks are CNAs. CNAs help ambulate, feed, and care for residents while they are living at the home. When I finally became a CNA it was one of the greatest accomplishments I have made in my life so far. 

Becoming a CNA was such a big accomplishment for me because it took a lot of dedication, I had to earn respect from my peers, and it’ll help me progress further into the medical field. The amount of time put into the classes, clinicals, and testing were exhausting. My CNA classes were half online and half in person. Often times the online classes started before school, so I would have to get up earlier to be there before the college class began. I also would work the night before and get off late, with that being said I would be tired from getting no sleep and from having to get up early again. This required a lot of determination and dedication, which in the end worked out. My clinicals were during my 8th hour class and located about 40 minutes away, this required determination because I would have to make up all the work on my own time. Along with having dedication to become a CNA, it was hard to earn respect in there as a 17 year old because a lot of CNAs weren’t close to my age. Earning the title as a CNA was no simple task. 

Being a CNA comes with earning respect, someone can’t just be thrown into a care center and expect everyone to trust or rely on them. When someone first gets a job in a care center they will require a minimum of one to two weeks of orientation. In those weeks you will learn where you stand in the hierarchy and how to improve by getting advice from the mentors. This can be very intimidating and stressful, due to the fact that there is a lot to learn about all the residents and one wrong move could cost a life. Respect is an important aspect in the medical field because without it no one would follow any orders, therefore nothing would be accomplished in an acceptable time. Equally as important as respect, becoming a CNA put me one step further into the medical field. Currently the medical field needs a lot more people to join. With this in mind I’m one step closer to diving deeper into healthcare since I’m already a CNA. The career I want to pursue in the future is nursing, more specifically neonatal nursing. I’m so grateful that I’m able to get a jumpstart now into nursing, then to jump into something more intense in the future. Neonatal nurses care for premature babies who are fragile after birth. Being a CNA right now benefits me in becoming a nurse because I know how important it is to be efficient and thorough in everything I do. Being a CNA requires someone with a natural urge to nurture. 

The nursing industry is not made for everyone and they attract a special type of person. Because people don’t have what it takes to go into nursing, they are in desperate need of more nurses. The amount of schooling and exhausting hours put into becoming a nurse or nursing assistant is not easy, and that’s why I’m proud to say I’m apart of the medical field already. Being a CNA is my greatest accomplishment because it’ll help with nursing in the future, I earned the respect of my peers, and the amount of dedication it took was tiring. Everything is worth it in the end to be known as a caregiver.