In a previous post I talked about some Nursing Assistant job interview tips. In this one I thought I’d list questions you may be asked during a CNA interview. These are from a variety of sources and include questions that were asked during real interviews posted on message boards. So these should be a fairly good representative sample. If you prepare for answering all of these questions, it should stand you in good stead for your interview.

Question List

How did you fill downtime at your last job?

Tell me about your last performance review. What was mentioned about how you

could improve? Any recurring themes?

Which situations kept you from coming to work on time at your last job? How often did that occur?

Describe a recent problem you had with one of your manager’s decisions. Listen and

then ask, how did you handle it?

What about your character makes you a good candidate for this job? [note: a variant of this is “why do you think we should hire you?”]

Priorities often change suddenly throughout the day. If you are asked to quickly do

another task, how does that affect your mood? What if it’s the third time before noon?

What do you feel is an acceptable amount of days to be absent in a calendar year?

How do you handle situations that could cause you to be tardy or absent?

How have you responded in the past when you found another employee was stealing?

24/7 operations are like relay races where you take the baton, run with it and then

pass it on smoothly. How do you make seamless transitions on shift changes?

How have you responded in the past when your replacement calls in sick and a

substitute will take over an hour to come in?

During the last year, when your replacement hasn’t shown up and your manager

asked you to stay late, what percentage of the time have you stayed late?

Think about the last time your manager critiqued your work. How did you respond?

Give an example of when you did something without being asked. Can you give me

another example?

Tell me about your most frustrating experience as a __________ (job title). Listen

and then ask, how did you handle it?

What would you do if a patient or resident fell?

Do you have problems doing personal care for males? (obviously this question is usually asked to females)

Can you work overtime?

What do you think the job of a nursing assistant entails?

You’ve only given me ____ references, do you have any others?

How has your previous work experience and education prepared you to be a CNA?

Why do you want to serve this city/region?

A Certified Nursing Assistant needs to be persuasive. Sometimes patients are unwilling to follow your directions and resist your help.  Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an uncooperative patient?  How did you persuade the individual to cooperate?

List five qualities required to be a great certified nursing assistant.  Which one are you weakest in?

CNA’s must have the willingness and ability to follow orders and work under pressure.  How do you think you will handle working under these conditions?

Certified Nursing Assistants must be able to follow orders from doctors and nurses. Tell me about a time when you were asked by your superior to do something that you didn’t believe in.  What did you do?

Some of the duties of a nursing assistant involve performing unpleasant tasks like recording the amount of oral intake, measure urinary output, and collecting specimens for tests.   How have you prepared yourself for this?

Questions to Ask Employers

It’s important to realize, as noted in the other post, that the interview process goes two ways: You are also interviewing the employer.  Here are some sample questions you can ask an employer. You may even want to memorize a set of questions so you are fairly well prepared.

What are this hospital/nursing facility’s strengths and weaknesses compared to its competition?

How important does upper management consider the function of a CNA?

What is the hospital’s plan for the next five years, and how does this department fit in?

Could you explain your organizational structure?

How will my leadership responsibilities and performance be measured? By whom?

What are the day-to-day responsibilities of this job?

What kind of employee does your facility feel are ideal for the position?

What kind of educational or advancement opportunities does the hospital/facility offer. Are there training seminars, workshops, and so on?

Who will review my performance and how often?

How much assistance in setting career goals in provided?

How much opportunity for decision making will I have in the beginning and will this increase as time goes on?

What is the facility’s policy on transfer of employees to other cities?

What recourse do I have as an employee if I experience on the job harassment or unfairness?

What is the turnover rate for CNA’s at the facility?

Why do you think I should accept a job offer from your facility?

How much flexibility is there for changing my schedule?

How much notice do you need if I need to reschedule work hours or if I need to temporarily be out of town?

You can use these or create more along these lines. Remember that you are trying to find a job that’s a good fit, not just take the first job that comes along. So ask questions relevant to what you’d specifically like in a nursing assistant job along with the more general ones.  It’s probably best if you go through at least two or three interviews so that you can get a sense of comparison.

Knowledge is power. Run through questions and responses and find out about the facility you are applying for. Be informed and don’t just blindly follow. This mind set is important not only for getting hired, but for getting hired by an institution that you will enjoy, which will give you enough freedom and be a good work environment, and that you can use as an opportunity for advancement.

Sources:

http://www.integrity-tr.com/oth-Interview-Questions-List.html

http://allnurses.com/cna-nursing-assistant/cna-interview-questions-405719.html

http://.glassdoor.com/Interview/cna-interview-questions-SRCH_KO0,3.htm

http://blog.hrinmotion.com/2009/02/17/health-care-job-interview-questions-certified-nursing-assistant/

http://www.career.vt.edu/Jobsearc/interview/AskQues.htm



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Horizontal violence, sometimes also known as lateral violence, is aggressive behavior, harassment (usually verbal but sometimes even physical), or attempts to sabotage advancement among coworkers on roughly the same organizational level. It is a common problem in many professions, but in nursing it seems to be especially marked.

No one is quite sure why this is, but it is believed to have to do with the fact that health care is a male dominated field in which doctors, often men, are seen as having most of the decision making power and nurses are seen as being “mere” assistants. Though greater egalitarianism is an often mentioned as an ideal, the reality may be that the profession still tends to devalue or undervalue the contributions of nurses and nursing assistants. Thus these professionals can feel oppressed – as though they are at the lower rungs of health care hierarchies and not really respected. This can lead them to express their need for power or autonomy by victimizing or impeding the professional advancement of others at the same or lower levels. They do this because they realize that an expression of anger to higher levels of the hierarchy – i.e. doctors, administrative staff, and so on, will probably be unsuccessful or could even cost them their job.

Though this is often seen to happen among actual nurses, sometimes it is those just below their level – CNA’s, as well as new nurses on the job, that bear the brunt of it. They may be the victims of backstabbing, exclusion, verbal abuse, or in-group political maneuvering coming from the nurse level (technically this would be vertical violence – i.e. coming from above – but it follows the same general pattern). Or the phenomenon may be more genuinely horizontal, coming from other nursing assistants.

Often a new CNA will undergo a kind of “hazing period” in which they are given the least favorable assignments – unpleasant jobs with difficult patients and so on. This in itself doesn’t constitute abuse – rookies often have to pay their dues and somebody has to do the jobs. But if it is so repeated that the CNA genuinely begins to feels debased in self worth, and as though there is no attempt being made to help them advance, that is a problem. It becomes especially unfair if it is coupled with an exaggerated amount of accusation and blame being placed on the CNA for any problems that may occur.

Other forms that horizontal violence takes are just what you might imagine – all kinds of competitive behavior among CNA’s and nurses, rude remarks designed to undermine a CNA’s confidence, cliques of nurses or more experienced CAN staff making new assistants feel excluded, remarks to the effect that a CNA’s concerns are not valid and they should “toughen up” or “get with the program,” attempts to intentionally humiliate a CNA and so on.

None of this is new, it’s as old as group in-fighting itself, but being aware of the patterns it tends to take place in nursing can help you get the edge over it and know what to do when it occurs.So what can a CNA do if he or she encounters this kind of behavior? The main idea is to set a different sort of example. Be kind to your fellow CNA’s yourself, especially ones that don’t seem to have many friends or interactions. A friendly attitude will generally create friendliness in return even if this is not recognized at first.

If it does come down to an actual confrontation of some sort, be it from a nurse or fellow CNA, just backing down is not a good solution. Be polite but firm – if there is something you disagree with or that is obviously unfair, you have the right to express it. Remember that this is, or is supposed to be, part of the job. It’s about communication, not blind obedience. You’re supposed to be instructed by others, not dictated to.
One good technique is to ask an argumentative individual to sit down in some other area than where the confrontation is going on and discuss it. Often the simple shift of place creates a different feel and approach in which the concerns can be restated in less exaggerated terms and discussed.

If reasonable attempts to resolve the situation fail, it may be appropriate to meet with the management of your facility. Tell them the situation and that you don’t feel that it’s part of the job for you to be subjected to it. Ask them to arrange meetings in which you and the other members of your work team can discuss problems.

Another thing you can do is ask the management/staff to institute policies and education that help to combat horizontal (as well as vertical) violence in the workplace. You might suggest that they include lectures on it in classes for CNA’s, institute policies for dealing with it if these seem inadequate, set up employee mentoring (which encourages a greater sense of cooperation between employees), have meetings to discuss any workplace violence concerns, and so on. These actions will serve not only to highlight your own personal situation, but prevent other such situations in the future and bring it to a more generalized awareness.

The problem of workplace violence shouldn’t be just swept under the rug, and this applies to the CNA profession as much as any other, maybe more so since it is fairly common in the industry. Don’t assume that this kind of work environment is just status quo or par for the course. The real key to making a difference in this pattern is to be active in changing workplace conditions not only on a personal level but on a larger scale one. If you take this type of purposeful action you’ll not only be doing yourself a favor but creating a better situation for everyone in your profession as a whole.

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A Nursing Assistant Certified Psychiatric abbreviated as (NACP) is providing help to physically or mentally sick persons, who may be injured, suffering a disability or having poor health condition admitted in a healthcare facility, specifically oriented towards mental health.

As a category Nursing Assistant Certified belongs to commonly used abbreviation CNA having many local names prevalent in hospital parlance like Nursing-aides. All are covered under the abbreviation CNA.

CNA Psychiatric is often called as mental health assistant or psychiatric nursing assistant is responsible for caring patients of mental impairment or emotionally suffering patients and works in coordination with a group of professionals like psychiatrist, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, and therapists. Besides carrying on their basic activities, the CNA psychiatrist socializes with the patients and is a support to them in performing educational and recreational tasks.

To be more near to the patients a CNA Psychiatric may spend some time with patients under care playing card games etc. viewing television in their company or participating in some sort of group activities. In such activities a CNA psychiatrist observes the patients and any significant physical or behavioral sign noticed is reported to the professional staff for their information and action.

What ever is the designation title held by a person CNA is responsible for providing hands-on care and carry on usual related activities under the supervision of nursing and medical staff?  More specifically the activities have great variations managing diverse requirements of a patient’s care. CNA is helps patient in the functions of eating, dressing, and bathing besides responding to patient’s call bell for help required. CNA also serves meals, prepares bed taking care of room cleanliness.

The Routine Job of a CNA:

The CNA is required to observe patient’s temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure measuring etc. In case a patient needs help to come out of bed for going to consultants for examination or have to go to the operation theatre CNA help is ever there. CNA is keeping an eye on the physical, mental and emotional state of the patients under care and notify the Registered Nurse if some thing adverse is observed. There are occasions, when CNA is required to assist Medical staff in setting up of the equipment taking care of supplies received and their proper storing.

Doing the Best in the Worst Surroundings:

Often Nursing Assistant Certified Psychiatric comes across patients who are uncooperative, having irritating behavior and violence among the patients or the staff is a common scene. The situation needs to be diffused by tactful handling by the CNA. Usually a CNA works 40 hours a week, considering the need some of the CNA’s work long hours.

The CNA should display tact in handling patients, understanding them and should be emotionally stable. He needs to be dependable and should possess desire for helping people. He should be ready for working collectively as a team with other workers if needed. One needs to have high level communication ability, and should not feel bored by repetitive and routine jobs.

A Nursing Assistant Certified spends most of time standing and running about and has tremendous work assignments on hand keeping them always on their toes. As their job is to lift the patients who are themselves immobile, while transferring to a stretcher, they get training in how to do such assignments safely, without harming themselves or the patient in the process. Some of the jobs are unpleasant tasks like removing filth of bed pans, changing bed soiled covers etc.

A CNA is likely to get minor infections, which are avoidable if the guideline procedures in this respect are carried out. Even in spite of all precautions some incidents do happen.

Minimum Eligibility for CNA Training:

Basically a High School Diploma or GED is the requirement to become a CNA followed by 75 to 100 hours CNA training at a State Approved School or an approved online CNA training service provider. This training usually ranges from few weeks to few months depending upon the number of classes one attends in a week.

Besides theoretically training the student has got, Clinical experience at a health care facility is also required. This training makes one eligible to appear at state administered theoretical and clinical tests. One passing the test the name of the CNA is recorded in the State Registry maintained by State Health Board. In few States there is requirement that CNA psychiatric should participate in a formal training program, however, most of the Nursing Assistant Certified Psychiatric are permitted to for learning these skills while on the job from experienced colleagues.

CNA Training:

CNA training is available at High Schools, Vocational and Technical Centers besides at few nursing care facilities and local community colleges. The training program focuses on the functioning of various systems of human body, besides topics of nutrition, anatomy and physiology, managing infection control and details of personal care of the patient admitted in the hospital.

Before one gets a Job as Nursing Assistant Certified, one is tested to be free from drugs and substances use and back ground check to rule out criminal history of the person.

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