Confused

[jenal77]

I have a question, I am a new grad and got hired for ER. My preceptor was never with me, always sat at the nurses station and if I needed something I had to go find her. She was scheduled as charge nurse on days I was working with her or on the main floors doing IV's or Midlines because she really awesome at it. I couldn't handle the stress of being left by myself anymore and always feeling like I wasn't safe because I never had any validation, so I turned in my two weeks notice. Two days after turning it in my manager called and said I didn't have to finish out my notice, I informed HR to CYA, fast foreword 3 months later, I contacted my old manager to see what my standings were, he told me he put me as non rehire able because of my pace, critical thinking and because my preceptor asked for 3 weeks more time because she was pulled so much during my orientation. Again I emailed HR to contest this, but yet again like before no one is responding. It's to the point of where I want to give up on nursing all together. How can I gain experience and learn if I can't get a chance to?

[llg, PhD, RN]

You left out a crucial piece of information from your original post. When your preceptor was being pulled to other units, etc. and generally not paying much attention to you ... how did you respond? What did you do to improve the situation? That is a key piece in the puzzle for us readers to understanding what happened.

[Flatline, BSN, RN]

Quitting during orientation is generally a very good way to burn your bridge at the hospital. Feeling unsafe is very different from actually being unsafe and there are a large amount of options that need to be explored before you actually resign.

[jenal77]

I would have to leave my patients and track her down if I had questions. I was basically left by myself in orientation with no feed back on anything, and people would ask where she was, I brought this up to management more then once and my clinical educator in our one on one meetings would specifically say we are one and should be joined at the hips.

[jenal77]

When telling management that your preceptor isn't with you and you have no validation if you are doing things correctly and it's your license on the line, yes I resigned because I honestly felt I was being set up for failure being just thrown in a specialty area as a new grad.

[FutureNurseInfo]

I am really sorry your first RN job experience was anything but pleasant. However, I do believe there should have been other ways for you to handle such a situation rather than just resign.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

it's your license on the line

I am so sorry this experience did not turn out well for you. Hopefully you can learn something from it and bounce back stronger than ever before.

Nonetheless, no one's license is on the line. The "my license is on the line" chant is exaggerated and overused. Nurses hardly ever have actions taken against their licensure for sloppy patient care or mistakes made during the provision of care.

Per disciplinary action records from most state boards of nursing, most nurses who have had their licensure censured were involved in theft, narcotic diversion, intemperate use of alcohol and/or drugs, impaired nursing practice, and other issues related to addiction.

Again, your license is not on the line. Good luck to you.

[CX_EDRN]

Honestly, I think you're screwed. No way HR is going to side with you after the fact, and if you're nonhireable now not much is going to change that. What have you been doing the last 3 months? If you haven't been working as a nurse, I think you're even more screwed. Take this as a valuable learning experience to advocate for yourself. Ask for a different preceptor if your original one isn't working out, tell your preceptor that her style isn't working for you, develop a plan with your manager, etc. I think you've burned this bridge completely, you need to start looking elsewhere for sure.

[audreysmagic, RN]

I am so sorry this experience did not turn out well for you. Hopefully you can learn something from it and bounce back stronger than ever before.

Nonetheless, no one's license is on the line. The "my license is on the line" chant is exaggerated and overused.

Again, your license is not on the line. Good luck to you.

Thank you for this. I hear this SO much, over and over, and it's usually regarding situations the board doesn't give two craps about. One's employer might, but that's another story. (And I often hear it most often when the nurse involved simply doesn't want to do something.)

That aside, to OP, I'm sorry your first nursing job was so rough. I've been thrown to the wolves in orientation, too. It reflects better on you to take some initiative, possibly look things up in unit references, ask another nurse who has a moment, or doing something other than just freezing and going to look for your preceptor. I realize newness and anxiety don't always lead to forward thinking, and I've made my share of mistakes, but hopefully you can turn this into a learning experience.

[cyc0sys]

Sounds like you just took the first job they offered without considering whether it's something you really wanted to do.

"My preceptor was never with me, always sat at the nurses station and if I needed something I had to go find her."

Orientation is not skills or tasks training. Orientation is more like being introduced to the way business is conducted day to day at the facility, understanding your role in relation to the health care team, and what duties your expected to perform as a functional team member.

While some facilities offer training programs prior to entry into specialty fields, others expect you to hit the ground running. The latter seem to be the case with your situation. If being proficient at a new job requires new skills, most people are expected to engage in methods of self study, finding a someone to mentor while performing a task, or doing whatever else it takes to become proficient. That's the hallmark of professionalism.

I'm not sure what you mean by validation. Health care is largely 'management by exception'. If you're screwing up, plenty of people will tell you, sometimes to your face or other times to your back. But you will find out. Validation occurs every time you don't injury a patient, perform all duties as expected, and don't get called into the DON's office for a reprimand.

[amzyRN]

Leave it off your application and no one will know. Or you can claim the experience and tell them it's not okay to contact the employer. I'd just forget this employer for future work and move on. Consider it a learning experience.

[manager123]

Do NOT leave it off your job experience or work history. All employers do background checks and this will show up. In some states, this is enough to terminate you or fail to hire you because you falsified your application.

Depending on the laws in your state, your employer may only provide the hire date and date you left and nothing more. Other states may have different laws and provide more information. If your previous organization is part of a chain, you may find that the "do not hire" applies to ALL of their hospitals. You can try to avoid the discussion with the "do not contact" box but it often raises more flags by doing so if you are not currently working there.

It is best to be forthright and honest. You can identify that you were not prepared for the complexity of the patients in that ED and that the orientation was not as you had expected.

I respectfully disagree with some of the posters. If you gave an incorrect medication, dose, or performed a procedure that caused patient harm because you were not being appropriately mentored, if the error was significant enough, either the patient, family, or your own employer could report it to the BRN. I would also say that in the investigation, the facility might be hard pressed to explain how they called this orientation but that is a whole different can of worms.