Advice from all L&D nurses

Amorypaz22 · Feb 25, 2008 08:54 PM

Hi everyone, I hope someone can identify with all the questions that I have. I graduated form Nursing School in July, I began working in a medical unit becuase everyone told me to start here, plus I had some experience her from being a CNA for about 3 years. It is now four moths since I started and feel terrible at work. I had great expectations about this job, but now I'm very comfused. I love nursing, I have a great relationship with every one of my patients, but feel as if I'm not enjoying my job. I had four weeks of orientation and the first day on my own felt absolutely stupid, although I did a great job. I work 12-hr shifts and have no time for lunch break or bathroom, it is terrible I can't concentrate at times. I enjoyed very much my labor and delivery rotation while in nursing school, but did not want to go into this specialty without any experience. I am now applying for an L&D position in another hospital, I don't know if this area will be more overwhelming than med-surge because in have no experince in this area at all. I would like to know what resources I can use to study/review what I need to know for L&D nursing. How many weeks of orientation does a new grad have? What are your suggestions, Please give me all the advice you can possibly give me I will consider everything. THANKS!!!!!!

angelwingsamy · Feb 26, 2008, 12:11 PM

i like the incredibly easy series of books. go to your bookstore and check out some books and see which you like. good luck to you!

jhhrn68 · Feb 29, 2008, 08:17 PM

We have many nurses who come to our L&D unit right out of nursing school. It takes a long time to get them through orientation but luckily our unit will spend the time and money to get these nurses the right training so they will have the best experience. Everyone on the unit is crossed-trained in L&D, post-partum and newborn nursery. I think post-partum is the easiest thing for a new nurse to start with. You are basically working with a young, healthy population. You can get some basic nursing skills under your belt before you get into the L&D where things are invariably more hectic. Some hospitals have LDRP's and there is just one basic unit. We have a separate L&D but all the nurses rotate through. One day you might be in the nursery, the next in L&D. We even do our own C-sections so we all have to learn to scrub and circulate. And some of us also do home visits for moms who stay only 24 hrs. after vaginal delivery. It means there is always something to learn and it never gets boring.
The great thing about nursing is that there are so many choices.