Exactly what do certified nurse aides/assistants do?

i am a c.n.a. it is a very rewarding job. it is a very hard job. you deal with young people with head trama to old people who have had a stroke. we do alot of charting; every 2 hr. we do bed checks on them, if the are wet or dirty we change them, we feed them if they are unable to feed them selfs. we give them baths. some of them can do thing on there own, but you will find that most of them can't do anything on there own. the worst part of being a c.n.a. is getting close to someone and then they die. it is really hard, it is like losing a family member. after they die we go in and clean them up, take off their glasses, take out their teeth and lay them on their chest, we close their eye's if they die with them open, and then the morgue will pick them up. you also have some that like to hit, bite, pinch, grab at you. but they don't understand what they are doing, i love my job and would not trade it for anything, but it is no joke. you hold peoples lives in your hand. it is really a lot of hard work. i hope i didn't scare you but i thought you should know all the details. good luck with your choice.

depends where you're working. if you work in a nursing home, all you do is physical care (baths, changing clothes, fixing them up, feeding, etc) and a few vital signs. but if you work in a hospital setting (this also depends on the hospital), they put you back in class and teach you phlebotomy (drawing blood), foley catheter insertion and care, wound dressing changes and care, how to work with surgical drains, and vital signs. Of course, since the work load is heavier in hospitals, they give you waaay less patients compared to nursing homes. Hope this helps!