Feeling like a failure most days

Nurses New Nurse

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danigold

8 Posts

I could have written this post. I am a new grad (May '12) and have been on the job 6 months. I work on the step down unit of a small community hospital. Normal patient load is 5 patients. I know exactly what you mean about good days. If my patients are all stable and nothing majorly unexpected happens I start to think, "Hey, maybe I CAN do this job!" Then you have the days (often) where everything happens all at once. You have to give a med quickly, and of course the IV no longer flushes or is infiltrated (and I SUCK at IV starts). Then when you are dealing with this, an aide comes to tell you that so and so's BP is seriously high. The monitor tech then calls in to tell you the patient's family in room whatever wants to talk to you. The doctor picks that minute to see one of your other patients and start changing orders left and right, so you run to the Pyxis only to find out that pharmacy has not yet verified the meds and/or the med you need is not on step down, it's on med/surg. So you have to run by there...on your way you pass the room where the family wants to talk to you...they think you are arriving to talk to them and get annoyed when you say you will be there soon and pass them by......then your other patient calls out with chest pain or something and next thing you know you are barely hanging on to your emotions by a thread. One day I had to stop a hospitalist from consoling me because the first person who said, "Are you okay?" to me was going to get a sobbing, heaving, hysterical mess to deal with (I can hold it together as long as no one tries to comfort me). When when when will I feel like I'm good at this? UGH. And I totally agree about the task orientation. I'm still trying so hard to get it all done that I find I'm having zero time to really sit and help people. I feel like I'm not helping anyone the way I thought I would. I have no time!!!!! If patient is chatty and starts a long convo, I'm trying to figure out how to gracefully exit the room the whole time thinking of all I have to do. This is not the nurse I wanted to be!!!!!! I am just going to keep plowing through and hope one day I realize I'm having more good days than crazy days and realize hey - I have arrived!!!! UGH.

NurseGuyBri

308 Posts

Specializes in LTC, Education, Management, QAPI.

I truly think you are on the right track. You sound just like how I felt when I started. I became comfortable after about a month, but it was a full year before I felt truly confident. Even then, I still had doubts. It's a small level of anxiety that makes you heighten your awareness to things that you need to pay attention to. You really need to sit down and talk with someone, though. There is great advice above my reply, honestly, but you need to go over in real time with someone some goals and things that may help. Good luck to you!!

NurseGuyBri

308 Posts

Specializes in LTC, Education, Management, QAPI.

One more thing. when you leave feeling like a hot mess, that means you probably did some real nursing and saved some lives. That will never go away, it will only decrease in frequency :)

healthstar, BSN, RN

1 Article; 944 Posts

You must be my twin! You totally described me in orientation!! Which ended :( when I had stable pts, meds, assessments, report everything was on time and I was on top of everything, once something unexpected happened, my anxiety kicked in and could not focus when everyone was asking for things at the same time:( .......I felt confident at the end of orientation, but I was slow for the unit , i could run andngo faster but I an a new grad I have to read and reread orders, meds, do triple checks to avoid mistakes. If I rush and I am a new grad I will make a mistake!

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