Nursing Aides and Attendants

A Day in the Life

Your day as a nursing assistant could begin early in the morning, but because many patients in hospitals, hospices and long-term care facilities need around-the-clock care, you might also opt for an evening or overnight shift. Depending on where you work, your shifts could be long; your current position in a long-term care facility for elderly people requires 12-hour shifts for continuity of care. Fortunately, the pace of your current work is fairly low-key, unlike the shorter and busier shifts you had as an emergency room nursing aide.

As you arrive at the center, you coordinate with the shift supervisor. Learning about the patients in your care from the nursing report is important, but so is direct communication with the previous shift. A report can tell you that a patient got her medication, but the nurse who gave it to her can tell you how easily she accepted it. One of the residents who has advanced dementia had difficulty taking her medication, and you make a note to allot extra time to working with her today.

You play a key role in keeping patients comfortable. As you make your initial rounds, you'll almost certainly be asked to help with a bedpan or assist with feeding. These actions help your patients feel more comfortable and cared for, but they also serve an important medical function. Monitoring patients' fluid intake and output is vital to their care. During your rounds, you make a point of spending time with each patient. For some of them, you're a primary source of social contact, and taking a few minutes to talk with residents is part of your work.

When it's time to change bed linens, you prepare yourself for an argument with the patient who'd given the previous shift difficulty. On some days, her dementia makes her angry and fearful. It's difficult, but part of the compassionate care you provide is offering it even when a patient can't accept it. Fortunately, the patient seems clearer after a nap and greets you with a smile instead of suspicion. You and she talk about the pleasures of freshly washed sheets as you change the linens; she recounts happy memories of hanging laundry on the line as you help her back to bed.

Your shift is largely uneventful, although you do have to bathe and help change a patient who didn't call for a bedpan in time. When you worked in an emergency room gathering and delivering specimens, assisting with wound care and reassuring frightened patients, the pace was more hectic. You've also begun to appreciate how consistent care lets you get to know your patients. By the time your shift ends, you're tired but fulfilled. It's time to give your report to the next shift and head home.