Maintaining & Increasing Your Skills As A CNA

After successfully graduation from a state approved nursing assistant course, and after you have passed the CNA Certification Test for your state, you will be eligable to work in many organisations and companies as a Certified Nursing Assistant, also called a CNA. When you start working as a CNA, you’ll gain loads of experience every day just by perfoming your duties, and you will continue to learn as you go. Infact, you will be expected to learn and progress as a CNA throughout your career.

To become a fully certified nurse assistant in the US, you will be required to take and complete a nurses aide program which is approved by the state you choose to take your training in. Completing a state approved CNA program will ensure that you have completed the necessary number of classroom and clinical hours that are need for qualification and certification.

The CNA certification exam is regulated and administered by each state, and covers both the written and clinical section. For the clinical section of the exam, you must be able to show your ability at bending and moving a patient, measuring the patients output of bodily fluids, taking a patients vital signs, and other various daily maintenance jobs that are related to caring for a patient in a long term care facility or other health institution. Having full comprehension of the required skills will ensure you gain state certification, and recieve a vital placement on the state registry, guaranteeing to employers that your are fully capable of performing the job of a Certified Nursing Assistant, beyond the supervision of a clinical setting.

After you obtain your certification as a nurses aide, its vital that you maintain and increase your skills as you progress. CNA’s in some states are required by law to complete a specific number of hours of continuing education credits (CEU’s) each year in order to maintain and keep their certification. There are some states that even require you work a certain amount of hours each year in order to keep their certification.

As you gain experience as a nursing aide, there may arise opportunities to develop and further your skills, which require more certifications. Nursing assistants are not allowed to distribute medicine to patients, in some states however there is a special position which is called a Certified Medicine Aide. To become a CMA, you must have a CNA certificate, and also have a satisfactory length of employement and experience as a CNA. Upon completion of the course, which can be obtained through organisations such as The Red Cross, a nursing assistant will now have the added ability to distribute medication to patients, and the responsibility that comes with that.

As with most career choices, taking the intiative to increase your range of skills will ensure that you can perform your job above and beyond the required level, increasing your employability and making professional advancement easier.