I'm feeling very depressed. I was able to get a job on a general medicine floor at a large teaching hospital and I was very grateful to have a job since I've heard it can be tough for new grads right now.
But it's been very rough. My new grad orientation consisted of two days of hospital orientation followed by five shifts of unit orientation. After that, I was on my own. I was juggling 4-5 patients with only 5 orientation shifts under my belt. I was titrating heparin drips, ordering PTT labs, passing meds, taking admissions, doing wound dressings, and a whole slew of tasks that I feel woefully unprepared for. Most days I don't eat lunch. There are no secretaries on my unit and call lights are hooked up directly to the nurse's phone so I'm constantly getting calls as I running around like a mad woman.
The end result is that I already feel burned out and it's only been my second week alone. I worked as a nurse's aid for two years at a different hospital and thought nursing was my calling, but now that I'm at this new hospital, I just hate it so much. I spend my off days depressed and anxious about the next shift. It's frustrating because I received a longer orientation as a nurse's aid than as a nurse.
I don't know what I got myself into. I keep fantasizing about leaving nursing all together and doing something else with my life that's less stressful, gives me the ability to sit down for 30 minutes to eat, and let's me have enough time to drink and go to the bathroom. Thanks for reading my vent.
