Anxiety/Panicked newly qualified nurse in critical care!

[Riya24]

So, I am a new nurse and I qualified end of last year and took a few months out after my degree to have a break and go travel. Coming back into nursing as a critical care nurse was completely new and overwhelming to me as I never had the experience of ITU during my degree as a student. I'm really finding intensive care hard but I sure know that this is where I want to be at this moment in time because I'm gaining so much education and experience! I'm struggling a lot with drug calculations and understanding infusions etc and I know these things only come with time as I'm not even IV trained just yet but will be soon but I'm worried working with drugs such as noradrenaline etc! These patients are so sick and I want to be confident and a good nurse to them. How do I manage and fix my anxiety because it gets to the point I can't even speak words to my family or friends and I feel really down! I'm normally a confident bubbly person and at work once it settles down I'm confident and happy but my anxiety the night before builds up until I stand in front of the patient waiting for handover! I worry I have chosen the wrong career

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

This is normal. You feel overwhelmed now, but it should get better with time.

[BedsideNurse]

Agree with CrunchRN; it will get better. Problem is you "can't phone it in." Translated: you have get some experience, and sometimes it just really sucks being new. Most everyone has felt like you at some point. One year from now you'll be a totally different nurse and feeling a whole lot better about things. :) I know that's not very helpful for the moment, though, is it? ... I couldn't really talk to my family either (wouldn't understand), so when I was a new nurse I had a couple of people I had went to school with who I was still friends with, and we'd all just started new jobs (in different states). I'd call them and we'd vent and stress together about nursing stuff. We all worked in different clinical areas but it seemed like we generally had the same kind of issues, and although it didn't really help things necessarily, it was nice to have a sympathetic/nonjudgmental/understanding ear. Anyway, hang in there and don't be too hard on yourself. No one is born knowing this stuff.