Peds Nurse to Adult Nurse... Help!!!

[gahills]

I have been a nurse for a little over 2 year, so I still have tons to learn. My first year of nursing, I worked as a weekend supervisor at a nuring home and mainly did infection control and paperwork. After a year I decided to work in a hospital to obtain more skills and broaden my experience. I started working on a pediatric unit. I felt very lost at first but began to catch on quickly. I learned tons and now I finally am feeling confident in my abilities. I understand my patients and their needs and what needs to happen to make the kiddos better. Well recently (due to low summer census) our floor has combined with the Resp/med surg floor. So now we are a 40 bed floor of mixed population. I feel so overwhelmed. I dont know what to do with these adults bc they are total train wrecks! I want to provide good nursing care, but I leave work everyday feeling like I have failed my patients. When I have a pediatric pt I am so excited because it is my comfort zone. When I have adult patients I feel lost. Any advise, helpful hints, or just words of encouragement would help.... Thank you

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

well I hope you understand you are a novice again, even with prior experience. Your learning curve will be shorter of course. I recommend you talk to one of the more seasoned nurses or an Educator and try to discern what it is that makes you uncomfortable. Technical tasks can be learned. Is it the meds? communicating with patient and adult children? More of this population being chronically ill and maybe not surviving? Once you have ID'd your fear then you will be able to figure out how to cope. My thoughts are with you.

[AMN74]

I started out 25 years ago in Peds and PICU. I worked there for 5 years. When I relocated to another area that did not have Peds, unless it was a LONG commute, I decided to do adult Med-Surg for a while. The first time I gave a whole pint of blood I was afraid I was going to put someone into fluid overload, let alone 2-4 units of PRBCs. The med doses felt HUGE to me. I was so used to calculating meds mg per kg, and now suddenly adults take huge doses of meds. I found that I had to look them up again to make sure the doses were safe for adults. It did take some adjustment, but all in all the care is about the same... taking care of the patient, whether they are big or small :) I wish you the best.