[color=#ff0099]hello fellow experienced lvn's. i'm a new grad who got hired recently at a six patient acute/rehabilatation facility. the person who did the hiring told me that they do one day of orientation (with no pay) and than leave you to yourself. what i mean "by myself" is it's just me and a cna taking care of all six patients. there will be no one there supervising me giving me advice if i need it. she knew i was a new grad, green as ever but she saw something in me that made her hire me. my first day consisted of her walking me through the house, introducing me and showing me where they keep their disorganized supplies. i saw so many red flags already just from the walk through. we than split up our patients, she gave me the med cart keys and left me by myself. three patients does not seem that bad, however since everything was new to me i did take a while to pass my meds. i lagged like there was no tomorrow because i was reading the mar double checking it making sure i had the right drug and i even pointed out a mistake on the mar for her. once i was done with my day i had to write my nursing notes and they were just ridiculous. the reminded me of swiss cheese with so many holes in them and i kept think "malpractice if you don't document correctly" i couldn't believe how stupid i was that day. i went through nursing school with straight a's. i believed this profession was going to be simple. i was so wrong and so disappointed with my progress during orientation.
after my orientation she told me that if i wanted i can come a couple of more times on my free time to get more oriented so i agreed. the second day she gave me all six patients and no guidance whatsoever. i found myself going back and forth asking her questions. i felt ridiculous. i came home that day and just cried. in the back of my mind i was thinking, how am i supposed to take care of these patient all by myself with no help? what if a patient crashes and i freeze and don't know what to do? i was making mistakes here and there (nothing major, thank god) but no matter what the whole concept of my duties was just not clicking. i would go home and stay up at night running through my day trying to figure out how i can better manage my time and pin point my mistakes. finally by my third orientation/volunteer work because that's what it felt like she told me to come at night from 3-11 pm. this wasn't so bad as the morning shift and i had an lvn give me face to face orientation. i still doubted myself and felt that i wouldn't be able to do this on my own. i wanted to just run away from all of it. when i called her to tell her i wanted more orientation she said they were going to go with someone else.
my biggest fear was losing my license because of some major mistake that i might make. did i make the right choice? was i just being a whiny scaredy cat who was just freaking out? it's not like i had 30-40 patients all to myself so why couldn't i handle six?! i feel like such a loser and seriously think that i may have chosen the wrong profession.
