3 concerns for a New Grad, advice?

[tapone]

Hey everyone, just got hired on a med surg floor. Are there any drugs that just stick out for when you first started? I plan to study up on everything, including Pharm so that when i hear a drug verbally i can know what it is and not have that "whats that funny word again?" face. But are there any that you really suggest studying to get a heads up?

Also, for all of you people who worked from the ground up, i.e. STNA to LPN to RN, etc. I would like your advice. I was a STNA for a year and 3 months and will now be a LPN (school done, need to take boards but have a job waiting) and I need advice on how to make that transition to being in charge of (and i dont mean that in a bad way) the STNAs and giving them things to do. I mean, being a stna i know what its like to work under a LPN so this may seem like a question i can answer, but any tips would be great.

Oh, and one more question to all you nurses out there. Being a LPN (or soon to be) I am a little worried that working on a fast paced hospital floor, that I will asked to do things that arent in my scope of practice. In school we are taught that you never do anything outside that scope, and i respect that, believe me. Then again, I hear from other Nurses c experience that it happens in the real world. An example is for instance (this happened in one of my clinicals) a 4month old needed to have his little outfit changed. But, that would mean disconnecting the IV line to do it. It is so minor and easy, but not being IV certified yet, it is not in my scope. Nurses told me that will happen a lot and i'll end up doing it anyway. I guess I'm just unsure of whether to play it by ear or have a no tolerance attitude. But, i dont want to be seen as difficult or annoying if i have to decline or bring to a RNs attention that i cant do this/that. Any advice????

[Fiona59]

Are you talking about locking an IV for the clothing change? Actually clothing changes can be done with out locking an IV its just challenging...

Anyhoo, I've just politely told the RN that such and such is not in my scope of practice and am therefore unable to do so. It's your job to know your scope, its your license to protect. Just be polite.

[tapone]

thanks. Yeah, I believe it was the lock, she disconnected the IV connected to the bag from the IV going into the pt, this conncection was pretty close to the pt where she did it...ummm, im so bad with IVs cause i have almost no exp with them (besides checking for infiltration which is about the only thing a LPN can do without IV cert.)! But, youre right its my license on the line, just wondering what i might expect to encounter.