What makes students want to go into nursing? What do they learn from being a certified nursing assistant (CNA)?

“I wanted to go [into] the nursing field since I was younger,” senior Laila Wilkinson said. “I wanted a jump start.”

Wilkinson admired how nursing was more of a caring aspect which is what led younger Wilkinson to choose this career path.

“I picked nursing because they do less stuff [with] the medicine side [and] more of taking care of the patient side.”

Wilkinson learned a lot of medical techniques nurses use to take care of people while working on the orthopedic floor. In comparison to other floors, she deals with more broken bones and physical situations people get into. 

“Shifts are either eight to 12 hours,” Wilkinson said. “I have to work a total of 24 hours every month so I usually do every other weekend.”

Though things could be a little different with senior Olivia Huff who is fully-employed and works eight-hour shifts.

Certified nursing assistants spend part of their time at hospitals assisting nurses with taking care of patients with changing, feeding, and walking. 

“As a CNA my goal is to care for people’s most basic needs and ADLs,” Huff said. “ADLs are activities of daily living.” 

Assisting patients to get dressed, bowel movements, and feeding — she’s even worked with dementia patients which offers its own challenges, but it’s “really gratifying work,” Huff said.

Other than helping patients she’s also been “learning about book smarts and street smarts.”

Sometimes nurses don’t have to do exactly as they were told to in school since there are times they have to do something different for the better of their patient.

Huff has learned many things to help her reach her end goal in life. “[I want to] be a nurse practitioner in the ER,” Huff said. “CNA was one of the first steps of many that I’ll need to [climb].”