Certified Nursing Assistant Jobs

It runs on a cycle. You take report, start rounds, and keep going, with call lights interrupting and charting happening between rooms. In long-term care one aide covers a hall of residents. On a hospital unit it's a smaller group of rooms and more time with each.

Yes, with the vocabulary set by your state. Ohio calls the credential a state tested nurse aide (STNA), Kentucky's registry lists state registered nurse aides (SRNAs), and Maryland replaced CNA and GNA with CNA-I and CNA-II in April 2026, where CNA-I absorbed the geriatric designation and is the tier a nursing facility can hire. Go by what your own state's registry calls it, since that's what an employer verifies.

Not on the certification alone, and what it takes depends on the state and the setting. Nursing homes are the strict end: where a state credentials medication aides, some require a current CNA first and others certify them directly. Assisted living runs lighter, and where a state has no medication aide credential the rules fall back on trained staff assisting with self-administration. Where the credential exists, those roles carry the medication aide title.

Hospitals hire them onto units, often under the title patient care technician, and so do home care agencies, hospice and rehab, where the registry listing is the qualification federal rules ask for. Dialysis is the exception: a technician there has to earn a state or national dialysis certification within 18 months of hire.

Yes. It's lifting and it's the clock: repositioning and transfers run all shift, so postings state a lifting requirement, and the assignment leaves little slack in it. Whether the employer has mechanical lifts and pairs aides for transfers is a fair thing to ask in an interview.

It rarely counts as academic credit. Working as a certified nursing assistant does buy you paid patient contact while you take prerequisites, plus employer tuition programs, which generally require you to be on staff. Our CNA guide covers the certification, and RN is the usual next step.