What’s The Difference Between Cna And Cma?
My wife is interested in becoming a nurse, but wants to get a job as an assistant so she can work while attending nursing school. I know that the CNA helps the nurses more directly, doing baths and changing sheets and bedpans and what not. However, a CMA seems to do more relavent things like take vitals or give shots.
i found this question from a couple years ago http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;…
the same person (Diane A) answered my question last month saying that CMA isn’t the way to go if you want to be a nurse, but a CNA is. Why is that? as I stated above, it seems that administering shots or taking vitals is a lot more relavent (and interesting) than changing bedpans would be. Is my thinking wrong? would a CMA be more relavent if you were going down the MD path? Why is CNA a better starting point than CMA if you wanted to become a nurse and maybe eventually an RN?
Thank you in advance for your help!
HI– I will elaborate for you. If your wife wants to be a nurse; it takes 9 months to 2 years to become a CMA (and in some schools $10,000- $15,000) -that is half the time to become a nurse (or about the same to become a LPN)–so why waste all that time and $? Go do the nursing. CNA takes a few weeks. Second, the MA learns a great deal of stuff a nurse does not need to know (half the program is front office); they also do not learn anything about patient care as needed in a hospital. MAs learn how to put patients in rooms, assist the doc for exams etc. Giving shots, vitals etc will be taught in nursing school anyway; so a small portion that is helpful to nursing (which will be re-taught) does not make up for months of stuff a nurse would not need. Third, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to find MA jobs–so all that training could be wasted anyway. Additionally, most MA positions since they are in clinics & Doc’s offices are day positions–when she would be in nursing school anyway, so she would also find it hard to secure a position just based upon unavailability. The MA curricula is very very superficial–it really is not useful for the MD route either. Finally, there is a real possibility that any credits she earned as a MA would NOT transfer over to the nursing pre-reqs–so again wasted time , money & effort. Office work is not like hospital work either–to get in the hospital you need to be a CNA. Only a few hospitals employ CMAs on the acute care floors. Make more sense?
well my man is a CNA certified nursing assitant, he takes vitals but cannot give medicine, the LPN’s do that not exactly sure what CMA is sorry