Beaten down

[Alli Wy]

Oh man guys I’m hurting and hope I’m not the only one.

I got a job 1 month after my NCLEX on a surgical floor. It’s super challenging as every day every patient has some new tube, dressing, procedure...something new I’ve never really seen or worked with. Having feeds, trachs, TPN, vac dressings etc all in my daily patient load as well as trying to navigate a new charting systems...well its all brand new. It’s only my third week and I thought I was doing well but it’s my first night shift and everyone is yelling at me and my nurse partner even suggested I picked the wrong career. She feels I should know how to do all this if I really graduated school.

I’m so low right now and having terrible thoughts about not being able to face more attacks as I have 6 more nights in the next 8 days. Where I work there are no CNAs or help of any sort. RNs do all the ADLs, labs etc and it’s a lot of work. Guess I'm just hoping someone has some words of encouragement or stories of how they became a great nurse and all this is normal

[speedynurse, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

First - I have a tremendous amount of respect for med-surg nurses! I have been in the ER since day one and while it has it's challenges and definitely frustrations, I am comfortable with how I function as a nurse and my skills in general. Whenever I have hold patients, I have to admit I struggle a little more with time management - often giving my morning meds several hours late. I have learned that I am very fast with the ER aspects, but tend to flounder with "hold" patients in the ER. In other words - I could never go to floor nursing.

Second - that is pretty awful not having techs to help out. I am not saying that we have many ED techs (or that our floor units have many CNAs), but they do exist and are usually on every shift.

Third - honestly, nursing school teaches you the bare minimum. I know when I went to ER nursing from nursing school, I quickly learned how little I learned in two years of nursing school (and this is coming from someone with a paramedic background). It is reality shock, pure and simple. The best advice I can offer you when someone expresses their frustrations with you is to ask how you can improve, take any learning opportunities you can, and study during any possible downtime at night. Stay positive and keep a smile on your face - things can get and will get better with a lot of effort. If you still find yourself struggling a year from now, maybe it's a unit issue.