want to just quit, maybe its not right for me!

[erin01]

I come her to my peers to find support and constructive criticism so please try not to judge me. So i am a some what newer nurse, at least to a hospital setting. I am on a really busy tele floor at night and it can be crazy. I have been questioning my decision on becoming a hospital nurse for a minute. As it can be so stressful and not what i thought it would be. but then i found out i made a med error about a week or two ago and was upset. No harm done to patient and it was def a mess up from dr, pharm and me. But then i go to work and catch a potential med error d/t pharm mistake. Felt a little bit of a pick me up, like hey... brush your self off and learn and keep going!!!! I then get a new admit who is sweetest little lady. Very stable and it ends up her purse was stolen when she came to our floor! I felt sooooooooo bad for her and i could she how anxiouss she was becoming. I talked to her for some time and she asked for her ativan. I ask her if she takes it at home, and how much. I go and check her chart, and see that i have a standing order for the dose bid, so i jump up and give it to her=) HAppy that maybe she can rest. I sit back down and realize i should have checked the er record=( she had taken a dose about 6hrs before. I run pull my med book and see she that it was not a huge mistake, she was only taking a .5 mgs and its says usually dose is up 1 to 2mgs . But i feel horrible What am i doing ? I AM GOING TO KILL SOMEONE=( pt is fine check on her all night, v/s stable. I just dont know how to win here? I just started to remember why i became a nurse with this patient and i f... it up. I was gonna wait for my manager in the am and resign. But as the time when on i thought i would go home and get some sleeep and think. I am just questioning myself i am now 7m in as a rn and not sure what am i going to do. I know nurses make med errors, but i am not sure if i should be a nurse. I have a lot of soul searching to do. Please tell me i am not the worst rn ever:confused: and what your thoughts are? ok off to try to get some much needed rest!

[vivacious1healer]

The first year of nursing is a rough one for many new grads. That transition of being the student to being the RN....and all that was taught in the 'ideal world' vs. 'the real world' really had me frustrated to tears. Almost once a week I would question my career choice.

You will learn to slow down, so not to repeat those medication errors.

You will learn that certain specialities of nursing suit you better than others.

But please, don't quit before you give yourself a chance!

[ponytailman]

To err is to be human, to be human is the biggest asset floor nurses need, when u stop caring or learning from your interactions u can lose ur ability to advocate for those entrusted to you. Untill the robots take over be of good cheer, nursing is an can be both incredibly challenging and frustrating and then incredibly good for the soul

[mustlovepoodles, RN]

OP, I'm going to pass on a piece of advice that a wiser nurse passed on to me: People are harder to kill than you think. Thank goodness...Everybody makes mistakes and sometimes they're stupid mistakes. But that doesn't make you a bad nurse(unless you never learn from them--that's pretty stupid!) I say chalk it up to experience and know that you will never make that particular mistake again. Why, I've been a nurse 32+ years and just today I nearly made an insulin error But I didn't, i just felt like an idiot for awhile. Tomorrow is another day and I'll remember to give the insulin correctly in the future.

It could be that you haven't found your niche yet. A lot of us have to try a few different kinds of nursing before we find the one that really clicks. I tried ER early in my career and found out pretty quickly what I do NOT like to do. I tried L&D, liked it but didn't love it. Nursery, really liked it. Then NICU, LOVED it. And here I am 12 years later a school nurse and loving that. So you can see, there is no *one right job.* That's the great thing about nursing--you can do a lot of different things. Hang in there. If things don't start to improve by the end of your first year you might want to consider a transfer to a differnt specialty.