**I KNOW THIS IS LONG BUT PLEASE READ...PLEASE...I NEED HELP..I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING TO DO...i have been so depressed i cant do anything..please SOMEBODY help me...please...*
I graduated from the PN program in August, was licensed in November, and started my first nursing job right after licensure. I was hired at a nursing home and from the very get-go knew that: #1) I don't want to work in LTC, and #2) this would be very overwhelming. At this particular facility, LPNs do everything that RNs do except for IVs (bags, pushes, starts) and declaring death. So that means we also do all meds, treatments, PO's (physician orders), admits/discharges, pharmacy, everything.
I thought I could do it. I've always wanted to be a nurse, once I started nursing school I knew that I was in the right place and this was my calling in life. I would save lives, enrich lives, be an amazing nurse and help so many people. I would be happy and fulfilled, and everything else would fall into place, because I would be doing what my heart longed for: being a nurse. I'm the kind of person that pulls off the road in the pouring rain to let a stray dog come into my car, feed it, and bring it to the shelter so it's family can find it. I'm the kind of person that pulls over in winter to help an elderly person struggling to shovel their driveway. I always go out of my way for others, human or animal, because that's just who I am.
So...I start at the job. Everything is okay at first. Yeah, it's overwhelming and stressful, because there's just sooo much to learn and do and even in a 12-hour shift, seems like there's not enough time to do it all. I have ~30 residents under my care, and the other nurse has the other 30-ish residents. Only 2 nurses on duty. We have CNA's too, but half the time it seems like I'm doing their job too. 3 med passes during my shift, an average of 5 treatments per resident per shift, treating acute problems (diarrhea, chest pain, SOB, pain, etc.); preparing pt's for dialysis (copies of ppwork, vitals, meds), appointments (copies of ppwork, meds), discharges/admits (ridiculous amt of ppwork, verifying PO's, sending rx's to pharmacy, complete physical assessment, setting up treatments)... doctors calling for appts, follow-up on labs, med changes, INR levels, new orders, procedures needed...family calling to check on resident...
And so much more, but I won't overload you with all the details. Honestly, though, a ridiculous amount of stuff! And on top of that, anytime that something happens with a resident (say, family is upset over something, or an incident occurs) not only do you need to do the proper ppwork as well as following protocol (with VS, assessments, etc.) you need to notify the family, MD, and DON or administrator - even if it's like 3 AM. Now I'm a new grad, there's so much that I don't know, and during my orientation (~3 weeks) all that we focused on was med pass and treatments because that's the major thing - I was briefly oriented to all the other million things that need to be done, but it was mostly "learn as you go."
Anyways, I screwed up a couple times. Not filling out something properly - a PO to d/c ASA when a pt had a high INR. The only reason it was d/c in the 1st place is because I saw the pt was on ASA while on Coumadin (hello!) and had a very high INR (7.0) so I called the MD to d/c it. No one else caught that this whole time! So I d/c it but didn't put the order in another place that I should have (which I had never done before) and the next time I worked, like 4 days later, I noticed he was still getting it. I talked to DON, turns out other nurses were giving it because I didn't process the order correctly. Yet, no other nurse thought hey why is he getting ASA when we're holding his Coumadin r/t high INR? But the blame falls on me.
Another screw up: I didn't process a PO that came on my shift, because I told the following shift to process it (which everyone does because there's no possible way we can do it all on 1 shift). Well, that nurse didn't process it and no one did for 5 DAYS - turns out the pt had UTI which caused all these other problems, and the blame falls on me again for not processing the order right away.
There was an issue with a patients family r/t the pt's infection and the family didn't feel they'd been properly informed about it. I was technically off-duty as the nurse on that floor, but I helped the nurse on duty talk with the family and sort through everything (that nurse had been there >1 year). Anyways, I ended up doing most of the talking, so I was the one who charted on it. I called my DON about it, she said just write up a report and put it under the admin's door. Ok, so I did. Next day admin calls me very upset, wants to set up a meeting, because I didn't call her at the time it happened or did I fill out the proper form for the family. Even though I'm the new kid and don't know all this quite yet, the blame falls on me, not the nurse who has been there over a year and who was involved in the situation too.
And to top it all off, I was drawing up morphine to give to a patient. Order is for 0.5-1.0 mg SQ q1h prn. I was so overwhelmed that day and nervous because of the person who was w/me at the time, that the 1 time I don't triple-check what I'm doing, I draw up the wrong dose. i DID NOT give it to the pt. The other nurse w/me corrected me, and I was drawing up/shooting back the dose because I knew sumn wasnt right, but she saw it before me. So she reported it to the admin, which was right before the whole family situation mentioned above, so I was already set up for a meeting with the admin.
She fired me the next day. No if's, and's, or but's about it. She said I wasn't catching on quick enough in regards to ppwork and "proper protocol" for events (like calling her for something that isn't an emergency...). And since that other nurse corrected my morphine dose the other day she didn't feel comfortable with me working under her license. I know that was a huge ****-up, but I swear on my life, every single time I had atleast triple checked my dose, and just this one time..just this 1 time...ugh.
Nevermind the things I had caught that seasoned nurses hadn't caught. nevermind how great I was with the pt's, how caring i was with them, nevermind the family members who came in just to personally thank me & give me a hug for everything i did for their dying loved one, nevermind the good i did... nevermind that i'm brand-new and this just is incredibly stressful, not enough staff, not conducive to being a GOOD nurse just being a FAST nurse... nevermind that i broke down at work, completely sobbing, atleast 4 times in the last 2 weeks because of the stress and under-staffing that made it impossible to do everything, or that the other new nurse (an RN) was sobbing almost every day for those same reasons...
So, I got fired from my 1st nursing job. I feel so horrible. I feel like such a failure. I feel like a bad, bad nurse. Incompetent. Useless. Like my career is over, my life is over. No one else will want to hire me after they speak to this employer. I don't even want to work right now because I'm afraid that I can't do it. I don't think I'm good enough. So what if I did really good in school and am still going for my RN right now...obviously that doesn't translate into being good in practice. So what if my pt's loved me, families appreciated me, doesn't amount to much now does it. Since getting fired on Friday, I pretty much haven't left my house except for school. Not answering the phone, avoiding family & friends because I don't want to tell them. I'm too ashamed, too embarassed, too depressed to do anything or see anyone or try to feel better. I don't know where to go from here, what to do, how to cope, how to move on.
I don't know if I can move on. Right now I feel like this has defined me, and these last few years have been a waste because i can't be a nurse. Previous employer seems to think so. I want to crawl in a big black hole and just wither away in there..it would be better than realizing my dreams are crashing down, exploding into nothing, that there's nothing left for me other than workin at the local gas station and being miserable forever. Honestly how I feel. Especially in this small town, it will be difficult to find someone else to hire me, cuz past employer will probably tell them everything and they won't want to hear my side of things. Whatever.
Even tho this facility has a reputation around town for being extremely difficult to work for, and one of the nurses there told me its a "revolving door for nurses", and the nurse there w/highest seniority has only worked there for 3 YEARS...it's still a job, a nursing job that i was FIRED from. my 1st one. fired. after 2 months. god...
CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT THIS...i need help...i don't know who else to turn to...i'm too ashamed to talk to family or friends about it really...i don't know what else to do. is it all over for me? it may be...
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msmaximus
9 Posts
It's not all over, but, your idealism of being a nurse probably is, now that you know what it's really like; inadequate training, unbearable patient ratios, back-stabbing co-workers, lack of support from administration. It's good to pay attention and double check your work- but realize that you are NOT alone- just google "I hate nursing" or "done with bedside" and you'll see HUNDREDS of horror stories akin to this, Plus some glimmers of HOPE on how to mitigate the hellishness and/or get out of it. I know RNs who have over 10 years of experience (ICU, charge RNs) who were fired unfairly & for trivial reasons. Try to relax, you are doing a better job than most of the general population- sitting at desks- who could never handle the workload/pace that nurses do.