Background: I was a good student. Graduated magna cum laude, excelled in class but felt my clinicals were a bit of a let down. I was basically used as a CNA when I went to clinical.
I graduated in May and got offered a job on a Med Surg/Telemetry floor six days after I graduated. My preceptor is okay. I know she is putting forth every effort with me. I've only had five floor shifts so far. The first 3 were spaced weeks apart because of education classes through the hospital so there was some disconnect there having such a span between training in the floor.
My preceptor is a good nurse. She is great with the patients. This is her first time to be a preceptor. I feel like she and I think very differently. I like her fine as a person i just don't know if she is a great fit for me. But I have been trying to make the best of it.
This past weekend I had two shifts back to back and I was DETERMINED to become vastly more independent. I was pulling meds without my preceptor, passing them mostly without her, charting on my own and doing a really good job with keeping up with the routine of things. She remarked early in the shift how shocked she was at how quickly I was improving and coming along. Then yesterday around the middle of the shift things started to spiral out of control. I got overwhelmed and panicky.
Throughout this orientation, my preceptor has told me she is "OCD and crazy about charting". She does a lot of double charting, sometimes I see the rationale, other times I don't. She's also really critical of those around her...she reviews their charting and pokes fun when she sees a spelling error (usually it's simply a typo). Yesterday she was halfway across the nurse station and hollers over at me (laughing) about a typo I had made. It rubbed me a little wrong...maybe I'm being sensitive....but I'm new. I certainly don't want people to think "Oh, there is that dumb new girl." I just didn't like the approach. Everyone could hear and it embarrassed me.
There really was a culmination of several things....me feeling like I didn't keep up well at the end of the day, wanting to do a perfect job, feeling nit-picked, feeling stupid about a few mistakes I'd made, a reprimand from another nurse that I tried to help by putting her patient on the bedside commode because nobody was around to help him (I had quickly earlier surmised she isn't well-liked and doesn't have the most pleasant or grateful attitude), etc. I was doing chart checks and my preceptor says, "You didn't document reevaluation of so and so's pain". There was a cutting edge to her voice. I could feel myself inside working up to crying...huge internal struggle to keep it together. She kept needling me and wouldn't let up and finally she said, "You're really ticked off at me, aren't you?" I wasn't at all...I was probably just acting awkwardly because I was on the verge of crying. That was it, and I lost it. I just busted out crying right there at the nurses station. It was like a dam broke.
I feel like an idiot for allowing my emotions to overcome me. I knew I'd have days like this. I knew the first 6 months-1 year was going to be draining and difficult. I never thought I'd not be able to keep myself under control though. I figured I could at least make it to my car before the tears came.
Just venting, evaluating, thinking. If you have suggestions, throw them my way.
