How to Become a CNA as a Premed
/Learn about CNA programs and CNA requirements so you can become a competitive medical school candidate
Becoming a certified nursing assistant can give you the clinical experience you need to get into medical school
----
Part 1: Introduction
If you hope to become a competitive medical school candidate by gaining meaningful clinical experiences, you might want to consider becoming a certified nursing assistant or CNA. Premeds who work as CNAs improve their chances of getting into medical school and learn valuable skills they’ll utilize after earning their white coats.
Medical school admissions committees look favorably on premeds who are CNAs because they acquire an impressive amount of direct patient experience in their roles. After all, CNAs are the medical professionals who interact most regularly with patients.
In addition, premeds who work as CNAs become deeply familiar with the ins and outs of the healthcare system. They interact with every type of medical professional—from doctors to nurses to administrative staff. This provides CNAs with unique perspectives to pull from once they become medical students.
Becoming a CNA as a premed does more than strengthen your medical school application. It also offers you the types of valuable skills and experiences that will help you be at the top of your class as a medical student. As a CNA, you’ll quickly learn how to work on a healthcare team and collaborate with others to provide high-quality patient care. You’ll come to appreciate the roles, struggles, and triumphs of nurses, which will allow you to become an empathetic doctor who’s beloved by their staff.
Furthermore, if you want to improve your bedside manner, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a healthcare role that offers you better opportunities than working as a CNA does. You’ll spend your days providing basic care to patients and mastering a list of clinical skills that will help you excel in your early medical school clinical experiences.
With the medical school application process becoming more and more competitive each year, you know you have to do something exceptional in order to stand out from the rest of the applicant pool. Becoming a CNA and gaining noteworthy patient experience is an excellent choice to improve your admissions odds.
Continue reading to learn about CNA programs, understand the basic CNA requirements, and discover how to become a CNA.
----
Part 2: What does a certified nursing assistant do?
Before you determine if becoming a CNA is how you want to gain your clinical experience for medical school, you should evaluate if the role of a CNA is a good fit for you. While you might only work as a CNA for a few years while you complete your premed requirements, you’ll have a more valuable experience if you find the job enjoyable.
If the work of a CNA doesn’t appeal to you, you might look into becoming certified for another medical role—such as an EMT, medical assistant, or medical scribe—to gain the clinical experience you need.
CNAs always work under the supervision of registered nurses (RNs) and licensed vocational or practical nurses (LVNs or LPNs). Together with the rest of their medical team, they look after the well-being of patients. However, CNAs are primarily responsible for ensuring that patients have a positive and comfortable experience while they receive medical care.
On any given day, CNAs complete a wide variety of tasks. They assist patients in performing necessary daily activities, such as feeding and bathing. They frequently respond to patients’ calls or bells, collect vital signs, and change wound dressings. Depending on their setting and the patients they serve, CNAs may be responsible for assisting nurses and doctors with medical procedures or helping patients complete assigned rehabilitation exercises.
In addition to these direct patient tasks, CNAs spend a portion of their time documenting patients’ health issues, cleaning patient rooms, and stocking medical supplies. However, the vast majority of their work is spent interacting directly with patients, which is why being a CNA is effective preparation for medical school.
To be a successful CNA, you’ll want to possess a specific set of skills and qualities.
Strong communication skills—to interact effectively with patients, nurses, and doctors.
Empathy—to understand the feelings and struggles of your patients.
Time management—to complete the many tasks you’re assigned each day.
Flexibility—to easily adjust your plans to meet the demands of your patients and supervisors.
Compassion—to respect and value your patients while at their most vulnerable.
Physical strength—to reposition immobile patients or assist patients in and out of bed.
Many students on their way to becoming nurses, physician assistants, or doctors become CNAs as a stepping stone to their dream careers. If the above job description interests you and you possess this list of qualities, you might be ready to join their ranks and become a CNA.
----
Part 3: What are the requirements to become a CNA?
One reason why becoming a CNA is an attractive choice for premeds is because it requires a relatively small amount of training and education. In fact, it’s one of the few credentialed medical professions that doesn’t require a college degree. If you have a high school diploma and can pass a criminal background check, you’re just a few short months away from becoming a CNA.
What knowledge and skills are taught in CNA programs?
CNA programs teach students the knowledge and skills they’ll need to be successful in their CNA roles. Usually equivalent to about six semester credits, CNA training courses include a classroom component as well as an experiential component.
In the classroom portion of CNA programs, students study a variety of relevant content areas, including:
Patient communication
Patient safety
Anatomy
Physiology
Medical terminology
Pharmacology
Patient rights
Patient care skills, including CPR and first aid
To apply their knowledge to real-life medical situations, CNA students complete on-site training or clinical work at hospitals, clinics, or private doctor’s offices. During their practicums, they work under the supervision of registered nurses and alongside practicing CNAs. Whichever state you reside in will determine how many hours of experiential training you’re required to complete in order to meet your CNA qualifications.
How long does it take to become a CNA?
CNA programs vary in length depending on their format—some are highly condensed while others are intentionally spread out to fit with students’ outside work or learning schedules. However, most CNA programs last between four and sixteen weeks, offering you plenty of flexibility to make room for your CNA training within your larger premed plan.
You can find CNA programs at a variety of institutions. Many community colleges offer semester-long CNA courses, either in-person, online, or in a hybrid format. You’ll also find CNA programs at trade or vocational schools—often following a condensed timeline. The Red Cross offers affordable CNA programs in a variety of locations around the country. And finally, certain hospitals or nursing homes provide their own classes to help them train and hire qualified CNAs.
When researching CNA programs, it’s important to make sure each program is approved by your state’s nursing board or department of health so you can qualify for CNA certification. Whether you complete an online or in-person CNA training program should depend on your schedule, learning style, and the availability of CNA courses in your area. Hospitals and clinics that hire CNAs will not hold an online program against you. Just keep in mind that even online CNA programs require an in-person experiential component.
How to qualify for CNA certification
CNA credentials are awarded by individual states, so it follows that individual CNA qualifications vary state-by-state. However, most states follow fairly similar certification guidelines.
First, you have to complete a state-approved CNA training program and meet the minimum hours of in-person clinical experience. As mentioned, you can usually find lists of approved programs on your state’s nursing board website or the department of health website.
After finishing your CNA program, you’ll have to take and pass your state’s chosen CNA examination. Many states utilize the National Nurse Aide Assessment Program (NNAAP) Examination, administered by Pearson VUE. This exam contains both a written portion and a skills demonstration portion. The written portion of the exam covers such topics as medical ethics, infection control, safety, and data collection. Your CNA program—as well as your premed classes—should prepare you to successfully pass this first part of the test.
During the skills demonstration component of the NNAAP Exam, you’ll be asked to perform a few typical CNA job tasks in front of a trained nursing assistant evaluator. For instance, you might check vital signs, reposition a patient, or change the bandages on a wound.
Once you pass both portions of the NNAAP Exam, you will be added to your state’s licensed CNA registry. This final step completes your CNA certification process, making you officially ready to apply for jobs and start gaining the valuable CNA experience you’ve been seeking.
----
Part 4: How to balance being a CNA and a premed
Completing the necessary medical school requirements—including earning a high premed GPA, completing the right extracurricular activities, and studying for the MCAT—is demanding on its own. If you want to add being a CNA on top of everything else, you’ll definitely stay busy balancing it all. But the payoff, which is becoming a strong medical school candidate, will make it all worth it.
(Suggested reading: How to Study as a Premed)
When is the best time to become a CNA?
One of the great things about CNA training is you can complete it straight out of high school. Many highly prepared and focused high school graduates do indeed finish a CNA program before starting their first semester of college. This is a smart approach because, by getting your CNA training out of the way before beginning your premed classes, you can work part-time as a CNA throughout undergrad. This allows you to acquire several years’ worth of clinical experience before starting your medical school applications. Plus, the money you earn can go toward covering tuition or personal expenses.
Starting right after high school might be the fastest way to become a CNA, but if you’ve already passed that stage, you still have plenty of opportunities available. Completing your CNA training during your freshman or sophomore is also a good option because you won’t be juggling advanced upper-level science classes yet. Furthermore, this still gives you plenty of time to gain meaningful patient experiences you can reference in your medical school personal statement and secondary essays.
Since many CNA programs can be completed in one or two months, you might find it most convenient to finish your training during a summer break. However, if your summers are already packed with other extracurricular activities, it’s certainly possible to take a CNA course during an academic semester alongside your other premed classes.
Many CNA programs offer classes on evenings and weekends, which would comfortably fit around your undergrad courses. You just want to consider your overall workload and be certain you can maintain a strong premed GPA if you choose this route.
(Suggested reading: The Ideal Medical School Application Timeline)
Where are the best places to work as a CNA premed?
If you’re looking for a flexible CNA schedule that doesn’t interfere with your premed classes, you should aim to work at hospitals, nursing care facilities, or assisted living centers. Because patients in these settings need care 24/7, you’ll be able to request evening and weekend CNA shifts.
On the other hand, CNAs also work in private practices, urgent care clinics, and community clinics. Since these settings hold regular business hours, you might run into a few scheduling conflicts with your premed classes. However, if you’re able to schedule your courses into one or two days of the week, you’ll have plenty of work availability to get a CNA job in a private practice or clinic.
The good news is there’s a consistently high demand for CNAs. As a motivated and high-achieving premed student, you’ll be an impressive job candidate. Even so, you can cut down on your time spent searching for and applying to CNA jobs if you start by exploring the opportunities within your network and existing contacts first.
How to make the most of your CNA experience
Once you’ve been hired as a CNA, you’ll start gaining the significant patient experience you wanted. But even at this stage, there are strategic approaches you can follow to maximize the value of your CNA experience.
Build relationships with nurses and doctors. If they like you and know your medical school plans, they’ll be more eager to let you assist with advanced medical procedures.
Find a physician mentor. Ask them questions about their education, training, and work experience to better discern the path you want to take. Plus, they can write an impactful medical school letter of recommendation for you.
Pay close attention to tasks and skills beyond your scope. Even if you’re not qualified to complete certain medical procedures or tests, observe them being done by other medical professionals. This will help you master them more quickly as a medical student.
Gain experience relevant to your intended field of medicine. For example, if you’re interested in oncology, try to work in the oncology department at your hospital—or at the very least interact with oncology nurses and staff to learn more about their work.
If you approach your CNA experience intentionally, you’ll collect a meaningful range of in-depth medical experiences that will both increase your passion for medicine and impress medical school admissions committees.
Final thoughts
Becoming a CNA is an effective way to make yourself a strong medical school candidate. You’ll gain an impressive amount of patient experience and in-depth familiarity with the healthcare system. In addition, you’ll gain valuable skills and qualities that will help you excel as a medical student. If you follow the above step-by-step guidelines for how to become a CNA, you’ll be one step closer to earning your white coat and making your medical school dreams come true.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on medical school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school using his exclusive approach.
