Advice/ help!

[MS_22]

I'm a new grad and have been working on a surgical unit (we don't get medical patients) for almost 3 months. I'm only on my 2nd week out of orientation. Our ratio is 5:1. I feel like I'm in over my head. I came home and just cried yesterday because I went from knowing everything about my previous job, to not knowing anything. My time management stinks and I usually stay into the night shift. My latest night was recently and I stayed until 9:30!!!! I genuinely care for my patients and they really like me but I don't want to let down the charge nurse or other co-workers, if I can't get things done. I want to be a great nurse!

I start my morning by getting report, look at any new orders prioritize my patients and start passing meds. I usually go to my insulin patients or pain patients first, pass meds do the assessment and chart in the room. I then go to my next patients and so on. It's when I have the discharges, direct admits, patients going to surgery and preparing them, or getting the fresh complicated surgeries with millions of orders like gastric bypasses that I get all frazzled. Or when we don't have a tech or unit clerk and I'm having to put in orders, do vitals and i have doctors calling and yelling. (Doctors are freakin mean by the way). What am I doing wrong and when will I feel like I'm not sinking?!? I hear its gonna take like 6 months but I already dread going to work because I feel so lost. Please help! ?

[AJJKRN]

Don't lose hope yet...this sounds pretty typical of the first year!!!

Night shift (still as busy but in different ways than day shift) is often a better environment for a lot of nurses to come into thier own. Either shift really depends on the support system of peers available to you.

Look to see if your facility has a nursing standard protocol that outlines what you have to do for charting, etc on a patient that you've had for 12, 8, 4, etc hours and see if you're overcharting! I know charting is often my worst enemy because of the repitition in our charting system and all the things that get added to do every time I show up for a shift.

Remember, you are one person and floor nursing is a 24 hour job. Try to think of things that the next shift would rather be left with if need be. An example would be...one night a newer grad ran her tail off to wrap up an am discharge on one of the patients while another patient pulled out thier IV. I over heard the day shift nurse grumbling about the IV not being started and why the IV wasn't done instead...

I can say from my first year as a nurse that stairwell's are a good place for privacy when you need to cry!

I can also say that time management and confidence do get better but every nurse, no matter how long they have been a nurse will have tough days at some time or another, they just get farther and fewer over time