I am so mad at myself. I have beating myself up all weekend. My husband has to be sick of me saying the same things over and over again. I hate being new! I hate it. I am a brand new nurse. Graduated in February. I've been on the floor 2 weeks right now doing postpartum (mom & baby). I feel totally stupid and incompetent. I hesitated posting here because I am very aware that cyberspace is really a small place and is not as anonymous as people think, but I really need encouragement so here goes. Oh well maybe my coworkers will anonymously post words of support (or advice or a smack upside the head or whatever it takes for me to be a good nurse.) My assessments suck! I am completely embarrassed for missing things (and I think my preceptor thinks I'm stupid now). I have been playing Taylor Swift's Shake it Off all weekend to get my brain back on track. I am mostly sucking at assessments. Of course that may be because I haven't had much opportunity to do anything else. I have done head to toe assessments, but my school did a lot of focused assessments too. I missed tons of things I should have been covering in a head to toe assessment, but I didn't think of asking. I forgot some obvious steps in my assessment that I should not have missed. Also I can't hear heart murmurs on newborns to save my life right now (working on that). Struggling with telling what's abnormal on newborns in head to toe assessments and hearing "you know what normal looks like" though doesn't help because I guess I realized this week that NO I don't know what normal looks like! I'm a brand new nurse. So, what I did all weekend was look at pictures, tons of pictures of newborns, variations of normal, and abnormal. I listened to heart murmurs until my head hurt (and still not sure if I can recognize one). My husband assures me that I just graduated from school and I should be making mistakes right now and that's why I have a preceptor. All that being said, I want to do a good job. I don't like looking stupid. I don't want my preceptor to think I'm incompetent. I don't care if she thinks I'm good at this point, just not that I'm a complete moron. I don't think they orient a lot of new grads on this floor. Please gals and guys support, encouragement, tips for doing better with assessments, tips for not looking like a moron. I'm doing fine with skills and medications thus far. I don't think my time management is horrible, but assessments need serious work and that I know is the biggest part of nursing. I really, really want to do a good job. I want my third week on the floor to go better than the first two. Thanks.