OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and situation.

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Describe your organization.

The organization I am going to describe is a nursing home that I earned my CNA from, in
the state of Utah. This nursing home was lacking proper staff, violated health codes, did
not truly care for residents, etc. This place was one of the worst nursing/resident homes I
have ever seen. Avalon Health and Rehabilitation had a horrible reputation among the
community for improper care of patients and staff alike. This nursing home was a
dungeon to the residents and it showed during their inspection and rating during the short
time I was there. Avalon Health had been established long before I got there, and at one
point was a decent home.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be internal or external).

My role at Avalon was very simple, I was a CNA trainee with a plan to go to nursing
school. Avalon was paying for my CNA course and training. CAN training in the state of
Utah was 100 hours of classroom/lecture, and 24 hours of clinical/practical training. I had
completed mytrainning and worked for this home for 4 months after receiving my
training. My training prepared me for the tasks I was expected to perform everyday.
Primarily, I was to give daily care to residents and help them with whatever self-care
tasks they were unable to do on their own. This includes things like brushing teeth, eating
meals, showering, using the bathroom or changing briefs, changing bedsheets, dressing,
and basic wound/post-operative care. Most of the time, I was there to help make the
residents life as easy and comfortable as possible. I was also in charge of charting
personal and health information.

3) Describe the situation. (see the Canvas instructions for details, especially about how
your situation will be analyzed from five different perspectives over the next five
modules)

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 The situation is fairly complicated, with multiple layers of thinking and reasoning. Soon
after I finished my training, I knew I would never work in their center. I watched as
CNAs would sit on their phones as a patient cried to use the restroom, gave residents
dirty drinking water, wouldn’t change bedsheets, etc. There was an absolute complete
lack of care. I was absolutely shocked and disturbed by what I saw in that nursing home.
After I completed my training, I had to continue to work for 2 months. As soon as my
two months were over I quit and began working for a different nursing home in the area. I
had an exit interview where I divulged the reasoning behind my leaving the home. It was
a very long and difficult conversation. I had a lot of mixed emotions about leaving but
ultimately knew that is what I needed to.

During the next five weeks, I will be analyzing the decision to leave, and the exit
interview I had with my head nurse. This situation involved me, the residents, the other
staff, and the families of the residents who all deserved better care and treatment from a
failing system.

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 Reference or References