Day 2 of a new grad - so much uncertainty

[hollybambam]

Hello all!

As the title states, I'm a new grad, day two on the emergency medical unit with no previous nursing experience prior to uni/nursing school.

The position I have is specifically a new graduate program. I Was allocated two days on the floor supernumary (with a buddy nurse), and today was the second. From what I understand, after this (next shift Thursday), I will be rostered as a regular RN on the team.

We have preceptors, two of them who cover All 30 new grads in this group (spread out over the hospital), essentially they are available over a phone call and will come to you if they can. To me, this feels very daunting. I have no doubt that the nurses on the unit are supportive and would be willing to help me, but I'm not sure I'm competent to be left on the floor with a patient load on my third day.

I'm okay in general, and I think I can do it, but I don't think it will be without me extending myself a lot. In short, I'm not sure it's safe. I was going to speak with the num today to try and clear some stuff up, but I didn't get a chance.

We did get an orientation, but it wasn't a ward/ working orientation. It was a health service orientation - to the hospital. Paperwork, hr stuff etc.

I'm a little shocked to be honest. There are still many things that I am totally green on, like ringing doctors, filling requests, samples, some paperwork, and there seems to be a lot of bits that the nurses find out from docs/ each other and whatnot that I was not even aware of.

Im not sure how to bridge this gap. I'm not sure I'm ready, I will sure have a go, but I don't want to disappoint anyone and especially don't want to compromise patients.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your responses.

Holly.

[RescueNinjaKy]

My response is just do it. No one expects you to get everything right the first time. It's the mistakes that make for a great learning experience. Don't know how to call the doc, just do it. He'll let you know if you did it wrong or you're missing information, and then you know how to do it next time.

Don't know how to do something, just ask. Then do it. It's almost always better to do something then nothing when you're learning. If you make a mistake, you'll learn. The whole point is to get experience and you're certainly not going to be getting experience if you're not doing it.

Of course, certain tasks require more assistance so ask for help, so you know, you don't kill them. But other things just try.

[hollybambam]

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm glad to hear the attitude that I'm trying to adopt from someone else! Just do the thing. I will try my best. My biggest concern is the things that I don't do becUse I didn't know they existed. I know will always be senior nurses, but I feel like I should be in the loop at least.

I just don't want to be that moron, and I know everyone says that no question is a stupid one, but u could probably ask a few stupid ones I will do my best.