When I was a Certified Nursing Assist Essay Example for Free

When I was a Certified Nursing Assist Essay I first wanted to be a Certified Nursing Assist (CNA) at the age 16. I had to do community service for Graffiti. I was given a job as an activity assistant at a nursing home. I enjoyed it so much! The people there are so much fun to work with. The best part about it was being able to help them read the paper, play bingo, or whatever they wanted to do. Once a lady and her sister were pushing chairs down the hallway and I asked â€Å"what are you doing?† They told me they were taking a train ride to see their father for his birthday. It made me feel sad because I had to explain to them that they were going the wrong way, so I helped them back to their room. Once there, I explained to them that they lived here at the nursing home and were not going anywhere. It was at that moment, I wanted to really be in the nursing field to be able to make a positive impression on someone else’s life. I have found that being passionate and having empathy are some important traits to have as a CNA you it help you understand better as to why they might feel some different emotions in the new environment. Since residents have many nurses taking care of them it can make them feel anxious, sad, or depressed. Being responsible by using your gait belt can ensure safety or resident and yourself. A typical day for a CNA would start at 6 am. We would report to the charge nurse and get a report. Then, about 6:15, one would prepare a linen cart for their hall. Between 6:30-8, we start getting residents up and showered and bathed. We answer call lights between residents when we have time, as we’re taking residents to and from breakfast. As residents are coming back from breakfast, we are laying some down or changing them. CNA’s take a 15 min break around 9:15. After our break, we come back and answer call lights, take residents to therapy or activities, and do vitals or weigh the resident for the day. We continue to toilet people and give showers to those that did not get showered before breakfast. By 10:30 most CNA’s take a 30 min lunch. We come back at 11 to get people up that are in bed and change those who need to be changed; by noon all resident should be at lunch. At 12:30 the residents should be coming back from lunch. We would toilet those that want to stay up and take them to afternoon activities. And lay down ones that need to be laid down then answer call lights. CNA’s take their last 15 min break around 1:15 When we come back at 1:30 everyone should be taken care of. Then, we check our rooms to ensure safety and make sure everyone has been changed and toileted. At 2pm, we should be finishing up and giving reports to the next CNA and charting for the day. By 2:30 you should be ready to go home. In 2011, I worked at a nursing home. I cared for individuals who had Alzheimer, who had injuries that required Occupational Therapy, who permanently resided there. When we first get to work, we would report to the Registered Nurse (R.N) and then get our supplies ready for our shift. Afterwards, we would prepare clothes and help one get dressed for the day. After one was dressed and beds were made, we would go to the cafeteria and have breakfast. There would be individuals who needed assistance eating and drinking so we would find someone who needed help. Once breakfast was done, we would help everyone get back to their rooms and assist with restroom breaks, change and get them relaxed, or take them to the next activity. I would get my 10-12 residents vitals and report it to the R.N. on my hall. At 11:30, it’s lunch time, so we get everyone to the cafeteria and assist as needed. Between the 8 hour shifts, we give showers to the residents. We sometimes use a Hoyer lift and always wear our gait belt to help us lift the resident to ensure safety. It is very cumbersome to work as a CNA. The people are so sweet and we have the best of times! After lunch, we continue activities and showers. After the CNA’s take a break, we come back, and check our residents and change them. At the end of the day we clean our area and report back to the R.N. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to being a CNA. First, being patient with the resident is important because they are delicate. Since most of the residents are older in age, they cannot move as fast and their skin gets thinner with age and disease. Making sure you have ample time with each resident is a MUST! If you don’t make time then you could hurt someone or yourself. Another advantage to being a CNA is the pay, normally one is paid at least $10 an hour or more if you are part time nurse (PRN) or as needed you could get paid as much as 1 5-20 and hr. Stability is important because you really get to know your job and you’ll be the best to your ability. Working in the nursing field you have lots of job opportunities to meet and get to know people. Most places offer benefits for you and your family. Such as health, dental, and other benefits as well. Some disadvantages to working as a CNA, are standing on your feet for long periods of time and lifting pe ople all day. It can cause you to have back aches and swollen ankles. Dealing with death is another disadvantage because you really get to know your residents and it is like having a close friend die. It can take a toll on one. Family can be difficult as well. Being that some family members have taken care of their loved one, they have a schedule and like it to be kept but when the environment changes things seem to change. One last disadvantage I’d like to add, is nursing homes and hospitals are always understaffed which means a lot of overtime and pressure on one person so try your best to stay focused and not to take it out on your residents. Given that I have extensive experience in the medical field, I have found that you can make an awesome CNA if you listen to your charge nurse and follow all policies and regulations that are in your scope of nurse assist practice. If you are not sure of something, ask your Director of nursing (DON). The residents look to CNA’s as Angels of Mercy, so try your absolute best to always put them first. Have respect and show consideration of their belongings.You would not want someone coming to your house and going through your belongings or mistreating you.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity Essay -- essay

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Christianity is becoming extinct. In order for it to continue on it must modernize its beliefs. The average Christian is white, middle class and is from Europe or America. The religion of Islam is expanding quickly and will soon dominate Christianity. These are all common claims made about Christianity that many people believe, yet Philip Jenkins claims and proves them untrue in his book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. According to his book, Christianity is moving out of the global north and into the global south. In fact, Christianity is growing rapidly in countries such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He also writes about how Africa and Brazil will, within the next fifty years, replace Europe as the center of Christianity. Both of these countries have been heavily missionized within that past hundred years, and the number of Christians in each has raised millions. The expansion growth in these countries is due primarily to their high reproduction rates and their hunger for the Christian beliefs that the missionaries brought with them. Jenkins says in this book that the missionaries faced no problems trying to explain about a higher deity or other â€Å"bafflingly alien world views† to the Africans, because it followed closely with many of their own tribal beliefs. Many of the tribes worshiped one higher power already and also found that many of the Christian beliefs fell in sync with t heir own heritage and customs. They did though, encounter one problem: the beliefs fell so in sync with their tribal traditions, that eventually the African culture started to incorporate their customs such as exorcism, dream visions, prophesy, healing, and mysticism into their Christian churches, creating an entire sub group of Christianity. These sub groups are closely related to the more Pentecostal churches, but are far from the ritualistic practices of the Anglicans and Catholics that primarily missionized them. Pentecostal churches, because of the resurgence in countries such as Africa and Brazil will soon be the dominant Christian sects. They strongly emphasize views about personal relationships with God, biblical literism, speaking in tongues, visions and prophesy just as the African churches do. The Pentecostal church tends to mainly attract the poor or lower class of society, which also happens to be what Bra... ...nto the thought that religious wars may occur, be he completely left out the ideas that the Islamic nation, being known for terrorism and other such acts of violence, could potentially eliminate Christianity from any form of mainstream. This is a serious topic to think about considering what they have done to other religions, and to Christian sects residing in the Middle East. I think Jenkins should have presented this as more of an issue and an actual threat then claiming that it might cause slight conflict. The book unquestionably had some strengths and some weaknesses. I believe the information that Jenkins provided was extremely well established and proven. This is exactly the type of information that people need to know, because the truth is being denied. I think for the book to be effective, it needs to be laid out better. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone besides a theological scholar due to the manner that it flows, even though it has very good reviews and is on best seller lists for Christian books. I commend Jenkins for going against the flow and writing against the average beliefs, but admonish him for writing the information in such an incomprehensible manner.

Differentiating Organisms Using a Gram Stain

Amanda Lab Report 1 Microbiology Laboratory Title – Differentiating Organisms using the Gram Stain Introduction The experiment conducted was based upon the known attributes of two different groups of bacteria, those that are gram positive, and those that are gram negative. Using a specific staining procedure, it is possible to differentiate the two types under a microscope The gram stain method of differentiation is possible because of differences in the cell membrane between the two categories of bacteria. Gram positive cells have an extra thick layer that is made of highly-crosslinked peptidoglycans, which impart different properties.This layer makes the cells less susceptible to decolorization by Ethyl Alcohol. Using this property, cells with a thinner peptidoglycan layer can be stained a different color than gram positive cells within a culture. The primary color is applied to the culture and imparts a purple color to all bacteria in your sample. Adding Gram’s iodin e, a mordant used by the method’s namesake, makes the violet color more intense, and creates a bond with the primary stain that makes it less soluble. The third step is to add a decolorizing agent, Ethyl Alcohol.In gram negative cells the alcohol makes the outer cells porous, which allows the primary stain to be washed away. The gram positive cells have pores that are actually dried out by the alcohol, which makes the primary stain fix into the membrane, and not get washed away. The final stain is the counter stain that lends a different, pinkish color to the gram negative cells that have been washed of the primary stain. Methods The method used in this experiment was derived from Cappucino and Sherman (2011) as detailed in experiment 10 with substitutions for the unknown bacteria.Aseptic lab technique was followed. One slide of the #7 unknown bacteria and one slide which included both unknown #7 and unknown #2 were prepared using the following stain technique. The initial sm ears were made from broth cultures using a loop, air dried, and then heat fixed. The smears were covered with crystal violet stain and allowed to absorb for one minute, before gently rinsing with a controlled stream of water from a squeeze bottle. Next, Gram’s iodine was applied to the smears with a dropper and left to sit for one minute before rinsing with water.Next, the 95% Ethyl Alcohol mixture was dropped slowly onto each smear and allowed to run off until the alcohol appeared clear and then gently rinsed with water. Lastly in the staining procedure, Saffranin was dropped onto the smear until it was covered, for 45 seconds. The smears were rinsed with water final time, then placed between sheets of bibulous paper to dry. Each smear was viewed under the light microscope using oil immersion at 1000x magnification. These smears were compared to smears prepared in the same fashion, of the known bacteria E. coli, B. cereus, S. ureus, and a mixed smear containing both E. coli and S. aureus. Results Experiment 10 Observations Bacteria| E. coli| B. cereus| S. aureus| Mixture of E. coli and S. aureus| RepresentativeField| | | | | Shape| Bacillus| Bacillus| Cocci| Cocci, Bacilli| Arrangement| Single, some clustered by the stain| Strepto| Variable, mostly staph| cluster| Cell Color| pink| purple| purple| Purple/pink| Gram Reaction| -| +| +| +/-| Unknown Bacteria Observations Name| Unknown #7| Unknown #2| Mixed Field| Representative Field| | | | Shape| Bacillus| cocci| Bacillus/Cocci overlap|Arrangement| Strepto| staph| cluster| Cell Color| Purple| purple| Purple| Gram Reaction| +| +| +| * Table 1 shows how the three different cells were observed after staining. The only pink and gram negative bacteria were the E. coli which were rod shaped and collected in a strepto arrangement. Bacillus cereus was purple in color, appeared rod shaped characteristic of bacilli and was gram positive, appearing purple as expected. The other gram positive and purple bacteria, St aphylococcus aureus were spherical in shape, and clustered into large groups with some lone cocci visualized.The mixture in Table 1 showed a good contrast between the pink rods of E. coli and the purple circles of S. aureus. * Table 2 shows Unknown # 7 as a rod shaped, chain forming, purple bacteria. Unknown #7 was visualized as a clustering purple, spherical organism. Both appeared gram +. The mixture of the two showed the same shapes, but in this case the rods and spheres tended to cluster and were more difficult to observe as they were the same color. But rods and spheres could be clearly discerned upon careful examination. Table 1 served as a control for table 2, as each the unknowns in Table 2 were going to be one of the Table 1 organisms, barring contamination. If a bacteria was visualized in Table 2’s data that was not present in Table 1, there was an obvious error which could be corrected by redoing the slides. The information for Table 2 came from observations on Thu rsday following the original day for the unknowns on Tuesday, as we observed contamination on the slides from gram negative bacteria that should not have been present with gram positive stains.Discussion B. cereus and S. aureus appeared purple upon observation through the microscope. This is consistent with knowledge about the two bacteria that indicate they are gram positive bacteria. The purple coloration means that their outer layers are of the more highly cross linked type with more peptidoglycan, which gives their cell membrane shape and firmer structure. This also makes the membranes open to dehydration without weakening.When the decolorizing agent was applied in this experiment, the cell walls of the gram positive organisms shrank up, not allowing the primary stain to leave. They remained purple even after treatment with Saffranin. E. coli’s outer layer also has peptidoglycan but it is much thinner, and surrounded by lipids. When the decolorizing agent was applied to t he slide containing this bacteria, it’s membrane let the stain wash easily out of the thin membrane. The saffranin as the second stain was then picked up easily, giving the E. oli a pink shade. The results of the study show that unknown # 7substance was B. cereus. The purple color and gram positive reaction ruled out E. coli as the identity of the unknown. Rods arranged in strips were observed in the unknown # 7, so B. cereus became the leading contender. When unknown #2 and unknown # 7 were mixed, a contrast between the rods and spheres could be observed, which made it clear that unknown #7 showed a clear bacilli structure. Contamination on Tuesday of the experiment led to misleading results.Because unknown #2 had been visualized as purple cocci, and unknown #7 had been visualized as purple bacilli, when unknown #2 and unknown # 7 were mixed, it was unclear as to what the pink gram negative bacteria appearing in the slide were. The pink bacteria clung to the purple bacteria in the slide. It was decided that the unknown #2 had been mixed up with another unknown during testing, or the aseptic technique had been compromised. The unknowns were heat fixed and stained a second time, visualized individually and in a mix . The final results were unambiguous.It is unclear whether the gram-negative bacteria were E. coli or another gram negative bacterium as the pink structures were behind the purple structures in the slide and were very translucent. It also possible the pink bacteria were a result of decolorizing the bacteria for too long with ethyl alcohol during the staining process, or the pink bodies were contaminant material and not cells at all which happened to take on the Saffranin stain by chance. Literature Cited Cappuccino, J. G. , and N. Sherman (2011) Microbiology: A Laboratory Manual. Pearson Benjamin Cummings (San Francisco).

Learn Chemistry - A Guide to Basic Concepts

Chemistry is a logical science. You can master the essential concepts yourself. You can study these concepts in any order, but its probably best to start from the top and work your way down,  since many concepts build on understanding units, conversion, and how atoms and molecules interact. Key Takeaways: How to Learn Chemistry Its possible to learn the basic concepts of chemistry online.Chemistry concepts should be studied in a logical order because concepts build upon each other. Jumping into the middle of the science can lead to confusion.While its fine to learn chemistry principles online, be aware that the lab component is an important part of the science. Its a good idea to supplement textbook learning with experiments using a chemistry kit. Introduction to Chemistry: Learn about what chemistry is, what chemists do, and why you would want to study this science.Units Measurements: Get a handle on the metric system and the common units used in chemistry.The Scientific Method: Scientists, including chemists, are systematic about the way they study the world. Find out how to use the scientific method to collect data and design experiments.The Elements: Elements are basic building blocks of matter. Learn what an element is and get facts for them.The Periodic Table: The periodic table is a way elements can be organized based on their similar properties. Find out what that table is, how it was designed, and how you can use it to make your study of chemistry much easier.Atoms and Ions: Atoms are single units of an element. Ions can be made up of one or more types of elements and carry an electrical charge. Learn about the parts of an atom and how to identify the different types of ions.Molecules, Compounds, Moles: Atoms can be joined together to make molecules and compounds. A mole is a useful way of measuring an amount of atoms or larger components of matter. Define these terms and learn how to perform calculations to express quantities.Chemical Formulas: Atoms and ions dont bond together randomly. Find out how to predict how many of one type of atom or ion will combine with others. Learn to name compounds.Chemical Reactions Equations: Just as atoms and ions combine in very specific ways, molecules and compounds react with each other in definite quantities. Learn how to tell whether or not a reaction can occur and what the products of a reaction will be. Write balanced chemical equations to describe reactions.Thermochemistry: Chemistry is the study of both matter and energy. Once you learn to balance the atoms and charge in a chemical reaction, you can examine the energy of the reaction as well.Electronic Structure: Electrons are found in regions around the nucleus of an atom. Learning about the struct ure of the electron shell or electron cloud is important for understanding how atoms and ions will form bonds.Chemical Bonds: The atoms in a molecule or compound are attracted and repelled with respect to each other in ways that determine the types of bonds they can form.Molecular Structure: Once you understand the types of bonds that can be formed between components in a substance, you can begin to predict and understand how molecules are formed and the shapes they take. Valence shell electron pair repulsion (VSEPR) theory helps chemists understand molecular structure.Liquids Gases: Liquids and gases are phases of matter with properties distinctly different from the solid form. Collectively, liquids and gases are termed fluids. The study of fluids and how they interact is important for understanding the properties of matter and predicting the ways in which that matter can react.Rates of Reaction: Several factors affect how quickly and completely a reaction proceeds. Learn about th ese factors and how to calculate the speed at which a reaction can occur.Acids Bases: There are several ways to define acids and bases. One way is to look at hydrogen ion concentration. No matter which method you choose, these categories of chemicals participate in some very important reactions. Learn about acids, bases, and pH.Oxidation Reduction: Oxidation and reduction reactions go hand in hand, which is why they are also called redox reactions. Acids and bases may be thought of as reactions involving hydrogen or protons, while redox reactions tend to be concerned with electron gain and loss.Nuclear Reactions: Most chemical reactions involve exchanges of electrons or atoms. Nuclear reactions are concerned with what happens inside the nucleus of an atom. This includes radioactive decay, fission, and fusion.