Being the newbie

[freckles23]

Hey everyone, I just need somewhere to vent in hopes of someone letting me see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have been a nurse for 6 months. I started off at a subacute rehab facility and though it was overwhelming at first, I made it through and ended up loving it there. The staff was super supportive and they made it fun to work. I learned so much at the facility, it was kind of like working in a hospital. But I always wanted to work in a hospital and finally got the call I had been waiting for. A position on a med-surg/tele unit. I was super excited because that would be a step ahead for my future goals. Ive always loved the fast paced environment of a hospital and the chaos that it comes with and the abundant amount of knowledge that medical professionals know always inspired me to be like them.

So this week has been my first week on orientation at the hospital. It is overwhelming and I have my good days and bad days. Today was a bad day for me because there was just so much to know as far as charting and documenting goes. What paper you need to fill out to do certain tasks and how to do admissions and discharges and communicating with a whole list of doctors that I have never even seen or heard of before. I felt like I knew NOTHING about my patients. I also had a med error but thank god it wasnt a serious medication, but it definitely could have been so that kind of brought my whole day down hill and I just wanted to cry so I gathered myself together in the bathroom to take a breather and not break down infront of everyone. I know its only been day 4 and I had 3 patients today but I was so unorganized today and felt like a failure. I have a binder section for each patient so I can organize myself but in the midst of it all, every patient sounds the same. Ugh I just wish I knew what I was doing and I feel so lost and just want to have my routine down already and to know what Im doing and be one of those amazing nurses who knows everything about their patient and are good at what they do, but I am very far from it. I know it takes time but it was just a bad day.

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

Switching from Subacute to acute care is challenging. I know: I did it. I too was a new grad in subacute/rehab for 8 months before switching to m/s. It will get better. You will get more organized and will find that you can remember things more easily. Maybe have 1 paper with the most important bits of info about your patients that you can keep on hand in your pocket in case your binders are far away and you need to retrieve information quickly. You can use the patient labels for some info.