CNA training program at PMC offers paid path to healthcare career

Petersburg Medical Center is launching a new cohort of its on-the-job training Certified Nursing Assistant program next Monday, offering people in Petersburg a valuable opportunity to get paid while earning a professional healthcare certification in just five weeks.

"We hire people who say they want to become a CNA, and then we pay them while they're taking the class," explained Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Bryner. "At the end of the class, if it's a good match, then we would offer a full-time position."

The medical center operates two different CNA training programs: a year-long high school program offered every other year, and the intensive five-week on-the-job training course for adult learners - both paths lead to the same state certification.

The training includes 60 hours of classroom learning and 80 hours of hands-on practice. Students learn to take vital signs, transfer patients safely, master infection prevention protocols, and much more. They also learn about patient rights, dignity in caregiving, and how to recognize signs of abuse or neglect.

The role involves helping residents in long term care and patients in the hospital with fundamental daily activities they can't do themselves - bathing, dressing, eating, walking, and personal hygiene.

"When you can't do that yourself, the CNA has that power to make somebody feel so much better by just doing those simple caring actions that you take for granted," Bryner said. "They are the people who spend the most time with patients and residents during the day often, and so they get to know them very well."

The work isn't easy. CNAs often deal with patients who are in pain, frustrated by illness, or dealing with cognitive issues like dementia.

"It's not always easy. It's not an easy job," Bryner acknowledged. "And so it requires a lot of personal boundaries, you know, because it's easy to ... let it weigh on you."

But for those who find their fit, the rewards are profound. Jordan Stafford described her philosophy of taking care of people: "If I can make even just one moment better for somebody who's going through a difficult time or a difficult episode, then that's what I want to do." Stafford took this CNA class and, later, continued her training through a university partnership with PMC to earn her nursing degree.

She remembers an example of an elderly patient who loved nothing more than their "Sunday spa days" when Stafford helped her put on makeup. Stafford would draw on her eyebrows and the resident refused to let anyone else do it. "It's the little things that truly make those people who may not be able to talk anymore feel better."

"When I can just make somebody feel a little bit more comfortable or a little bit more like they're heard and they're valued, then I can say I made a difference in the world today," Stafford said.

Stafford expressed a wish that more young people would work as CNAs, "because it builds so much of who we grow into as a person."

The close relationships that develop can be profound as residents become attached to their caregivers, said Bryner.

Lauren Thain, also a registered nurse who started as a CNA through the program, remembers how meaningful the work immediately felt for her: "First day of CNA, I was like, 'This is what I'm supposed to do.'"

Thain added that "being in such a small community you get to have, I feel like, in a lot of ways, a bigger impact because it's your friends' grandparents, it's someone's aunt, it's someone's child."

Thain realized, through working as a CNA, that she wanted to pursue a career in nursing. Like Stafford, she completed the nursing degree through a University of Alaska Anchorage partnership with PMC, and she found the program to be a perfect fit for her life situation: "I had a small baby...so having that program here let me take those steps and then become a nurse and continue to grow. It changed my life." And it started with the CNA training.

Brooklyn Dormer took the high school version of the CNA training program as a junior and worked summers at the medical center while going to college. She says working summers as a CNA is how she paid for all her living expenses during college where she earned a biology degree. "For me, I was interested in science, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do," she said. Because PMC is a small critical access hospital, the CNAs interact with a diverse range of health career paths. "I got to work with PTs and OTs and radiology and see all the different career avenues there were within medicine." For Dormer that helped her discover her interest in laboratory work. "Being a CNA and starting that journey so early allowed me to recognize what my own strengths were and how that could fit into medicine." Dormer now works in the medical center's lab and is training to become a medical technologist.

Full-time CNAs work three 12-hour shifts per week, with four days off every week. Part-time CNAs work three shifts per two-week pay period.

"It's really a nice, flexible job for people who have other responsibilities," noted Bryner. The medical center tries hard to accommodate scheduling requests and time off needs.

"Neither of us missed our kids' first day of school," Thain noted about the supportive work culture that has been really beneficial for Stafford and Thain, both young moms.

Starting wages for CNAs are competitive, and Bryner noted Alaska's stringent CNA requirements also mean the certification transfers easily to other states, providing career mobility.

Bryner believes the experience creates better nurses overall: "CNAs that go on to become nurses, I think they become better nurses because they have that baseline, and they can go from there."

And many who have gone through the CNA training discover that the work itself is their calling. "We have some CNAs who have been CNAs for years and years and decades, and it's so apparent they love what they do, and the residents love them," Bryner said.

While the medical center has seen remarkable success with its grow-your-own approach to providing training and careers, there has been a noticeable drop in the number of people taking the opportunity to become part of the hospital's team through the CNA route.

And the need for CNAs is growing. Like healthcare facilities nationwide, Petersburg Medical Center has had to rely on traveling CNAs to fill staffing gaps - a solution that costs more but provides less continuity of care for patients. Though, Bryner notes, some of their traveler CNAs have renewed their contracts and have been able to extend their duration as caregivers for the medical center's long term care residents.

The upcoming five-week class begins Monday, but Nursing Supervisor Traci Vinson, who leads the training program, says it's not too late to join. "Because it's a facility-based program, we can be a little bit flexible. We could catch people up."

Currently, three students are enrolled, but the program can accommodate more. "We would make it work," Vinson said.

Those interested can contact Petersburg Medical Center, http://www.pmcak.org, for more information about joining the current cohort.