Sunday, September 27, 2009

Personal Essay: Rough Draft

Visiting my grandfather in the hospital was a common daily routine for my family and I, as I grew up. Watching the nurses taking care of patients in the hospital and at a nursing home always inspired me to do something in the health care field. I went to Diman Regional Vocation Technical High School, in Fall River, Massachusetts. I was in the Health Careers Program, and throughout my high school career I spent two weeks in my academic classes and the other two weeks in my shop. We learned skills that we needed to become a Certified Nurse Assistant. Freshman and Sophomore year passed and I was finally a Junior, it was the year that I would hopefully be certified as a CNA. Part of the process is to go out on clinical, which meant that the Diman Health Career Shop class would go to a nursing home and perform the skills in while we learned and get checked off in all of those skills.

I was terrified, I had never been more nervous in my life. The first day of clinical was fine, considering the fact we didn’t have to perform any skills on real residents, the first day, orientation day was based on learning the rules of the facility and learning about the residents’ rights. The second clinical day came and I wanted to honestly barf. I had to get someone up and ready for the day. I remember being so gentle and taking my time with everything, being as friendly as I could possibly be and just try not to cry with nervousness. As clinical continued I got through it and became less nervous. In May, I was tested in my skills and finally was certified as a CNA.

That summer, the summer that ran into my Senior Year in high school I applied for a CNA job at a local nursing home. I was called in for an interview and got the job. I was so happy, I finally was about to do something I loved, helping people in need, and to top it all off it was my first job. I thought I was set for a while. At first the job was nice, I was an orienteer for two weeks, and basically I just watched an older CNA do her job and learn from what she does. As I started working on my own I started to quickly realize the job wasn’t anything like I expected. During clinical I had one resident to wash and get ready, at my new job I had seven. Even so I continued on and thought maybe Ill get used to this, after all I am new at this, right? Wrong! The job didn’t get easier at all, and I know work isn’t going to be easy, I mean it is work but honestly I never realized how much work there really had to be done.

I never realized that residents could be so demanding, and how much they depended on someone. How much responsibility and pressure is put on a CNA. With more work piled onto one person it was sad to see, with more residents added onto one aides assignment, the poorer their care got. You suddenly don’t have the time to pamper them, or do their hair in little braids anymore, or fix there makeup, and paint there nails. I didn’t have the time to do those little things anymore and it was sad to see. They didn’t feel as special anymore, like you didn’t have time for them, which is true honestly speaking. I didn’t have time to pamper and make every resident feel special anymore.

After a few months working at the nursing home, I was moved from an upstairs unit to a downstairs unit. I wasn’t assigned six residents a night anymore, I had twelve to take care of. It was hard. I had never been sadder in my life. I would cry before I went to work it was that bad. I would hate going in and be so understaffed and deal with other aides who just didn’t want to do the work. I could never stand up for myself, so when an older aide told me to do something I would suck it up and do it, even though they were the ones who were suppose to be doing it. I definitely didn’t have time to pamper any residents now. The residents health decreased due to natural causes and twelve residents a night became too much for me, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I resigned as a CNA after working at that nursing home after one year.

Overall I think I forgot why I wanted to do something in the medical field. Doing the job wasn’t fun anymore and honestly I hated watching the residents’ being treated so poorly. I also learned that wherever I decide to work its always going to be that way. Life is life, and it really is unfair. I questions whether I made the mistake of choosing to center my high school career around the medical field and maybe I should of picked something else, I still want to become a nurse, I still want to help people, I know that’s something I just always was meant to do, I just need to realize things aren’t always what they are sought out to be.

2 comments:

  1. I think this is really good! I give you a lot of credit for wanting to help people. I dont have much information to help you with your essay because i think it sounds so good, and is set up nicely

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  2. i think essay is real good . i would have to agree with samantha that i dont have much information to help you since it alredy sounds real good .

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