A Young CNA During the Holidays

As the holiday seasons are fast approaching, I start to think about the people who cannot spend time with their families, have great food, and be in the comfort of their own home.  It is sad to see people who are alone on the holidays, but you know what is worse than that? Being alone and in the hospital as well.  One of my best friends is a Certified Nurses Assistant (CNA) at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. She is an aspiring future Nurse, and is gaining a lot of knowledge and experience through this job at Mount Auburn.  She works long hours at the hospital, and has to travel over an hour away from school to home every weekend to donate her time to these sick patients.  She experiences a lot for a young college student working in a hospital.  As we know, this past week was Thanksgiving.  She explained to me that every day is a tough day for the patients, but holiday's are amongst the hardest.  She said the hospital does get busy with visitors during this time, however, there are still a good amount of people who do not get any visitors at all.  This is extremely saddening.  Not only do some people get no visitors, but there are many patients who are admitted into the hospital during the holidays with excessive alcohol consumption.  This goes to show you another example of how many people suffer with loneliness on the holidays.  It is a difficult job to do what my friend does at such a young age, but she is experiencing a lot of real-world situations that will help her better prepare to become a successful nurse one day.

One specific area in which she said is emotional, especially during the holidays, is when she has to take care of a suicidal patient.  This is a tough job, because as a CNA, you have to be aware and attentive at all times.  "If a patient is suicidal, they cannot have phones with cords, knives, forks, razors, anything sharp, or anything they could put around their neck", says my friend.  Her daily tasks in supervising a suicidal patient would be to just sit with the patients, watch them, and take them to the bathroom.  Although it is not the busiest of work, it is a very important job.  She did say, depending upon the case, some patients need more than one supervisor at once.  For example, if they are violent or a threat, there usually would need to be more than one supervisor.  Overall, my friend has a very important, yet tough job.  She explains it is very hard to see what she sees at such a young age, but she is grateful that she gets to help people every day, while doing what she loves.  I think she is going to make a great Nurse one day!