Anxious RN

Have you ever missed a PIV before? How did you feel about it then? How did you get past those feelings? How do you respond when someone you are teaching misses a PIV? How do you respond when your coworkers miss a PIV?

I want to validate that you felt humiliated by the rad techs' behavior. I also want to ask you how you know they meant to poke fun or bully? Is there any other possible motive? 

I don't think about keeping my skills on point, I think about being a lifelong learner.  I've noticed that  the best learners do things until they get them right and waste no time criticizing themselves for doing it wrong. I used to teach yoga. When I taught children a balancing pose they would fall out of it a thousand times and never once say "I'm bad at this" they would just keep doing it until they got it right. Adults would fall one time and say "I'm bad at this.” I try to be like the child. 

Try not to make more of this than what it was. For some of us it isn't difficult to go straight into humiliation mode and start internally berating ourselves, overanalyzing, worrying what it means and in general feeling awful inside when something doesn't go as we wish it would have. 

To sum up your scenario most succinctly, you missed a difficult IV start. That's it. That has happened to every nurse who starts peripheral IVs. Frankly we all have also missed what should have been an easy poke at some point, too! 
 

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Just seems the older I get the more I'm struggling with skills I used to have no problem with. And for younger colleagues to make fun just seems so cold. I would never do that. And it has me questioning my skills and talent these days

Using this paragraph ^ as an example of where we go wrong. You are now kind of "catastrophizing" what happened. This was not because of your age and is WAY more likely to have been related to (if anything) lack of frequent practice/repetition at a skill.  Also your colleagues (older or younger is irrelevant) made a comment — so what. We don't know their intentions but IF they indeed were trying to mock/criticize, well that's cute. ?, who cares.  It's very easy and also very emotionally immature to mock others, especially when you aren't the one who will need to perform. 

Best thing to do is move on. Along the lines of the poster above me, be a good learner, don't criticize and catastrophize every mistake. You're a human being. ? 

Thank you both so much! I appreciate both perspectives and gentle comments. There is a bigger picture in our careers and yes we learn in everything we do. It never stops! And yes ?? performing vs. commenting ugh so much truth to that! Thank you for this reminder! Blessings to you both!