New RN, already making mistakes - Page 2

Being careful administering meds is a good thing. If it slows you down for a while that will be a lot better than med mistakes. Go easy on yourself. It takes a while to get your groove and you have a learning curve there.

Just slow down. Reading your post got me out of breath, I can only imagine your "real energy". ( yes, very jealous, as I could use some of it). But as a brand new nurse, try to slow down. There is a very large learning curve in nursing. You got to start at square one, idle there for a time, then move onto something else. Writing everything that must be done down, is imperative. You should not start patient care, before you have all your information on each patient, written down. Ask your charge nurse to then help you prioritize your tasks. Use the check box method here. Refer to it often, before you start a task and right after you finish one. This helps you to remember, patient c, needs BP and med in 10 minutes. Your second error, you second guessed yourself. That is why using your charge nurse, is in your best interest. She wants you to succeed and would have told you, yes, one neat line dated and initialed is required. You would not have felt rushed or overwhelmed, like you were when the other nurse says, NO, must be thicker. She sounds new too. So...

* Know you are new, have a learning curve, write everything down and consult your audit tool before and after every task. Do not rush through it, it is always better to be slow and accurate. Ask questions and write things down throughout your day. No distractions, when passing meds or charting. Use your charge nurse during these times, if help is needed. She wants you to succeed and you won't get 4 different responses or someone scaring you half to death. She is teaching you good nursing practice and company policy. Watch and listen to how she works. Slow down, and soon you will be able to multitask. Good luck! Peace!

Ps- take a deep breath, and give yourself the time everyone needs as a newbie. You are in no contest to be the fastest and have nothing to prove to the others on your floor. This is your learning time, use it wisely. Your charge is happy with you, so keep striving to be your best, not super nurse. She does not exist. Peace!

I graduate in exactly a week from the date of this post and I'm very nervous, but it seems like your doing well and it will get better. I really like the responses to your post (great advise for me as well) and they give me hope. Well just hang in there!

If that's the worst mistake(s) you can come up in, say, a week, you are doing fine. If you did both those things on the same day I wouldn't even call you a below average nurse, I'd just think you were new and nervous. No worries my friend.

I am planing on moving to florida, I am a med-surg with tele exp. How is the market for nurses downthere. I heard the pay is horrible but i do not have a job now. And also i now want to stay closer to my family. I was fired from my previous job. My patient came out of surgery with some complication. this particular doctor always have patient with complication post surgery. You call him he could care less . I heard that He does his robotic prostate surgery unassisted. He sometimes attempt to blame the nurses. I said "do not manipulate foley" We know that we did not manipulate foley .More fluid coming out of the jp draing than the foley. bolus after bolus with no urinary output. uncontrollable pain . Blood pressure sky high. cracles lungs, sob.ect. Nurses assistants that you can never find and forget to chart whatever they did. ( lesson learn do not care so much that you get frustrated you might end blowing off steam in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was thinking in my head except that it came out loud. my safety valve were broken, someone over heard me talking to myself. ( and it was not pretty) I worry so much about the guy. all the comfort time and care i gave him and his family did not amount to anything. I love being a nurse but i need to learn to leave my heart at home and come to work with my brain only.It was my first job i learn from my mistake. It is challenge to explain being fired to potential employer.

So...you're brand new, you're making mistakes, AND you're owning them and trying to pinpoint what YOU need to do to improve. IMO, that puts you light-years ahead of some other new grads!

Most of nursing school is teaching the basic building blocks of a nursing career, and how to pass the NCLEX. You still have a lot to learn, just like anyone fresh out of school. Try to find someone you can rely on as a mentor to help guide you and use as a sounding board. Take the time to take a few deep breaths and re-center yourself when things start getting hectic...a few seconds to refocus can save a lot of time and errors.

Try and find yourself a great brain sheet. The more organized you are, the less the chaos affects you.

Make peace with the fact that you are currently on the steepest learning curve you may ever encounter. Feeling overwhelmed is going to be normal for a while. Find ways to relieve the stress during your downtime.

You will get a flow down eventually. It may take some time, but it will happen. Keep building on your successes, learning from things that go not so well, and keep your chin up.

One other side note.... do not worry about the other nurses saying you are slow with meds, they need to cut you some slack with your timing. Perhaps they can give you some tips that help them stay organized with their med routine.
As mentioned above, the checklist system really helps - my preceptor showed it to me very early on and it made a huge difference. It also felt good to check things off as done, it helped me feel organized and like I was being productive. I am glad you have a supportive charge nurse, I would ask him/her for advice as well. Hang in there!

I'm a new nurse as well and feel like I am always screwing up. I feel overwhelmed, disorganized and stupid!

In the few weeks I've started this job, I've already made a med error and have been chewed out by a speech pathologist...and the hardest thing is giving yourself a break and remembering that this will take time. It sounds like you really care about your patients and your practice.

Keep up the good work! You can do this!

Why were you chewed out by a speech pathologist? Let me guess...something to do with diet, beverage thickner, or HOB elavation? The speech pathologist has no right to chew a nurse out. That person should quietly pull you aside and educate you. If this happens again, you need to go to your nurse manager and write it up. Leave a paper trail. Nurses have to stop letting everyone run all over them. We need to be proactive in getting our coworkers to see it from our point of view. While working we are expected to know everything all the time. It is impossible and we can never know everything.
Good practice: know what diets our patients are on before we adminisiter meds. Take a quick look at the computer, card ex, whatever system your facility has. Good luck.

I've been working my first rn job at a psych hospital. I've been there about 9 months and realize that I must be in sync with everything finally because I now realize things I forgot to do while I'm driving home. Before when I thought I was on it, I drove home feeling on top of the world. Now, I realize I just didn't know I was forgetting to do little things.
We all make mistakes, especially our first year. Never met a nurse that didn't have at least one med error under their belt. If they say no, they are either lying or unaware they made one. Relax and remember your still learning. Good luck to you