Burned out

[emmjayy, BSN, RN]

23 hours ago, Chelsea95 said:

Hi! I received my BSN in December, passed NCLEX in February, and have been off of orientation from the Cardiac ICU for a month now. I must say, you and I are experiencing the same feelings. I’m mentally exhausted. I never really sleep well the day before my night shift starts. I feel dumb sometimes. I’m terrified of making mistakes. I never want the really critical/complex patients and frankly, I don’t think I’m ready to start caring for them yet. I’m scared something bad will happen to one of them and I won’t know what to do. People at work keep asking me to take care of the IABP and CABG patients and I’m not ready for them yet. I do feel bad for rejecting but I know it’s unsafe at this point because of my lack of knowledge. My mind is constantly overthinking. I’ve been told I do way too much at work. I’ve been called an overachiever many times. I’m contemplating if Cardiac ICU is the right thing for me right now. I don’t know what else to do. I just asked someone to be my mentor so I’m proud of that. But overall my life has just been too overwhelming.

WOW, I can't believe you are already off of orientation! That seems like a very short time to be trained and they already want you taking IABP patients??? I had a 20 week orientation into the medical-surgical ICU and have not yet been trained on IABP (we occasionally get those patients) or CRRT or anything like that! No wonder you feel overwhelmed.... it sounds like you are not getting enough support. I feel for you. I hope that you are able to find a balance in your work and life. I can say that things have slowly been improving for me over the past couple of months thanks to having some more time/experience and thanks to switching to only night shift instead of bouncing back and forth between days and nights. I am still looking for a different position, but I think I am going to stick with this ICU for at least another year to try to come into my own and achieve some competency.

I hope that things improve for you soon! A big turning point for me was joining a gym and going at least three times a week. Makes me feel like I have something to live for other than work and sleep ?