New nurse and stressing out

Specialties Ambulatory

Published

I am a new nurse and I started working for a specialty Dr's office for almost two months and I feel stressed about my job. I have worked as a school nurse for 2 years prior and I just feel like I can't do anything right. I'm working for a small office with a lot of patients. It's two doctors, two MAs, and a RN who's me. The main MA has 8 years of experience and I always feel dumb or feel like I am doing something wrong. I don't know if it is me but I don't feel like I am being trained effectively to take on the role as the RN. I have been rooming patients along with helping the doctor with procedures but my main duty should be triage, phone calls, scheduling surgeries, and then just being the leader. I have spoken to the supervisor and the MA about this and telling them I want one on one training because I can't be effective if my training is "you just gotta pay attention to me when I do this but you gotta room patients when the doctor is here". I like to ask a lot of questions just to make sure I am doing something right because I don't want to make a mistake but I will get, "I already told you how to do this." This MA knows that she is impatient and is not a good teacher. Just the other day i was on the phones when the doctor wasn't in the office and the MA told me I needed to be doing pre-certification. I have never done one before and so my first one took me 30 minutes and i only got a few done in that day because I was busy with phone calls. The MA at the end of the day in a way put me down and made me feel bad by telling me, "well you got only one done today and can't you move faster?" I wasn't messing around by not doing anything and I tried to explain to her that I am new and haven't done this before and for her this is nothing. She went on lecturing me for about 20 minutes about what I should be doing as a nurse and I am really trying to do my best. Then today i come into work stating i want to do phones when doctor is in office and shes like, "oh well i gotta ask him if he is comfortable with that". She's a great worker and all but I am just at a lost right now. She also states that she doesn't like repeating things because then she said that if I know I can ask them a lot then I will never do it on my own because she said that's how she is. I'm an independent person and if I can take care of something on my own then I will. she also casts a lot of doubt on me because my very first day she said, "this job is a lot are you sure you will like this?" And just keep asking me this question. I just feel stressed because of the pressure and I want to know what I should do or what.

Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Office nursing is tougher than people think. You need to learn how to room patients efficiently and triage calls also. And you need to take control. Come in and stock the rooms. Then room the patients and while the doc is in the room squeeze in a call or two.

Specializes in Chemical Dependency.

I'm going through a similar situation as an lvn in internal medicine it's though lots of the MA been there for years which of course have more experience but we just gotta tough it out nobody starts knowing everything it's takes time to grow

Specializes in NICU, Telephone Triage.

What I find strange is that a MA is training you?! And giving you orders and duties? Isn't there someone who is above him/her that should be training you? Being blunt here, but I wonder if the MA is just angry because they aren't a nurse and they have to train someone who is being paid more than they are. Just a thought. I would talk to your supervisor.

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