Help me help my clients!

Knowledge is power. The more you know about their disease processes, the better equipped you'll be to assist your clients and answer their questions.

Become self-educated on the disease processes and addictive behaviors that most frequently occur in treatment centers for eating-disordered women such as compulsive eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, food addiction, binge eating disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Try to correlate your readings with what you see while working on your unit.

Good luck to you!

Research the meds they are taking and read and research all that you can on the diseases and treatments and be sure to document on your clients, over time, you'll "get the hang of it." The hardest part of anything is always getting started.
Good luck.

As a newly licensed nurse, you will feel sort of green in the beginning. This will also happen if you move on to another position. I started off working in the medical clinic in my hospital and stayed there for close to 2 years. I knew it backwards and forwards. Then, I asked to be transferred to OB/GYN and while I thought I remembered much of maternal child care, I realized that I had to go back to my textbooks and revisit forums here in allnurses to interact with nurses that had more experience. I purchased a pocket guide to maternity nursing, took all of the teaching material I could get my hands on and within a few weeks, I mastered enough to feel comfortable. Then, by about a month to 6 weeks, I felt even better, and was even able to correlate much of what I learned previously to what I do now.

Always feel free to say that you will get back to them (and then, make sure that you keep your word) to provide them with accurate information. Research information on line and follow the suggestions mentioned here. Nursing is a never ending process for learning...be patient with yourself and become armed with as much literature as you can. Good luck...you can do it!