Some of the best advice I got early in nursing school was to get a job as a nursing assistant. It was the summer in between my sophomore and junior year that I stopped working my outpatient tech job and switched to inpatient.Â
I struggled for a couple of months with the hiring process. Many hospitals said that they were short-staffed, even in the HR department, yet that didn’t make getting hired any easier. One day I saw a career open house event advertised for a local hospital. I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot. I got to sit down with many different people, including the manager of the floor I now work on. Within 30 minutes, I had a job, after a couple of months of applying and not hearing back.Â
The transition from outpatient to inpatient was interesting. I went from primarily healthy individuals to people with complex medical conditions. At this point, I had been to a handful of clinicals, but nothing has ever given me as much experience as working. While nursing school teaches you how to assess patients and give medications, nothing will ever teach you how to interact with patients like experience does. It allows you to work autonomously within a narrower scope of responsibilities. I like to view it as easing into the world of nursing.
 Another benefit of working as a nursing assistant while in nursing school is the “Aha” moments when the things you learn in class start to appear in the real world. A lot of things discussed in class are not seen every day in the hospital. One thing I remember from some of my first weeks working was my patient doing a 24-hour urine collection. I immediately remembered all the oddly specific nursing responsibilities and teaching points that we had learned in class. It’s such a random thing, but it captures that feeling of “oh wait, I know how to do this.”
All other reasons aside, my favorite thing about being a nursing assistant is the love I have developed for caring for patients. Nothing has ever been so difficult and yet so rewarding. When first starting out, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. But if anything, it has helped me feel more confident in my decision to become a nurse. People say, “I don’t know how you do it” or “Does that not gross you out?”, but they don’t see the look of relief and comfort after you’ve helped a patient wash up and change. They don’t hear the conversations where patients tell you about their life and family; even more so, the conversations with patients who haven’t had a visitor yet and tell you that they have no family. They don’t see the cards that patients make for you, or when their family comes in and the patient is so excited to introduce you to them. Everything about the job makes me so grateful to be there with my patients.Â
When I become a nurse, I hope that even with more responsibilities, I can still find time to sit down and have meaningful conversations with my patients. Being a nursing assistant has given me so many opportunities to learn and experience what healthcare really is, and I know I will carry that into the next phase of my career.