IHS students preparing to become Certified Training Assistants (CNA’s) learned 22 different skills and applied them at Prairie Estates nursing home during the month of November.
With final exams quickly approaching, students learned these skills through the Career and Technical Education (CTE) center’s Health Science Clinical class and while helping the elderly, they received advice to navigate life as a medical student.
Soumya Dharini, IHS senior, recalls an experience during one of her shifts at the nursing home when she was asked by a resident to sit down to talk.
“Hearing her perspective on life taught me a valuable lesson about cherishing the small moments in life,” said Dharini. “The resident described numerous hardships she went through, including the loss of her family. Despite this, she was able to appreciate the small things in life.”
At the nursing home, students are required to do simple tasks such as filling up residents’ water bottles and preparing lunch for them. But for Aparna Viswanathan, she learned working in this field requires more than being able to perform the usual care tasks. Rather, it requires the mental ability to withstand watching others being ill.
“When I went to the nursing home and saw some of the really sick people, it hurt me because I wanted to help them all but I [couldn’t]. In the beginning, I let my emotions get to me,” said Viswanathan. “I felt exhausted [watching the residents]. I had to ask a lot of my elders [for advice] because I didn’t know how to handle it.”
Unable to handle her emotions, Viswanathan turned to her teacher for help.
“[She] told me to detach myself from [what I saw].”
Although simple to say, Viswanathan struggled to apply her teacher’s advice in real life.
“It was hard, it took me a couple of weeks. I [managed] to get there. But this is just step one out of a million.”
Being at the nursing home also came with many positive experiences for both Viswanathan and Dharini.
“In the beginning, we were randomly assigned to a resident to interview them. Some of them would be very happy and some of them would be very ‘leave me alone’ kind of thing,” said Viswanathan. “But I realized one thing in common in all of them was the joy they got seeing the clinical students. It’s hard to explain but when they [saw] us, there was joy in them.”
Viswanathan recalls a time when a resident’s advice impacted her perspective on life.
“When I asked [a resident] for advice, she told me not to get frustrated if residents are angry at [us], even if they’re shouting. Do not take it to heart because [they] are in more pain than we think,” said Viswanathan. “It made me realize, we truly don’t know what people are experiencing on the other end.”
