feeling helpless...

[ewilson3]

Hello everyone:

I need some words of encouragement and advice. I am a new nurse who recently finished orientation. I work on a med surge floor (mostly surgical patients) on 12 hour nights. Everything had been going well until the last two nights. We always have ten patients each which seems like a lot and is pretty overwhelming to me. The past two nights I have just been feeling so overwhelmed and helpless. I have left in tears the past two days. There are only three nurses on the floor and lately we haven't even had a charge nurse on our floor at all. We share a charge nurse with our sister floor on nights, but lately we have been short staffed so she has been taking a patient assignment instead of just being in charge. So the past two nights we have has a float nurse and the only other nurse that is on the floor isn't very approachable and hasn't been very helpful to me. Today i didn't get out until nearly 930 am because I had to do charting. I just feel like there is no support, I still don't feel completely competent and there's no where to turn for help. For example I had a patient on high dose heparin drip protocol and she needs blood drawn from her picc and i can't do that yet (not certified yet), so i feel like i am bothering the other nurses when they have ten of their own patients to take care of. Also she needed her dose to be adjusted and to be given a bolus after her aptt came back too low but i didn't know how to do that so I ended up waiting until a day shift nurse showed up to verify i was doing it correctly and have her help me through it.

Another situation that was very upsetting to me, the evening charge nurse called me tonight on my night off to verify an order I signed off. I basically made a huge mistake and am afraid to go to work tomorrow. I signed off the dose for 1000 mg of levaquin on our electronic mar, but the pharmacy had made a mistake, the order was for 500 mg Levaquin so the patient has been getting the incorrect dosage because i was overwhelmed, had no where to turn to for help and was rushing when i was signing off orders. I feel so bad and actually feel physically sick. I am trying to just take it a day at a time, but I am crying more and more, not getting sleep. ugh i just dont know what to do anymore!

I have tried to talk to the day charge nurse because I can't keep functioning like this, she recognizes this is an issue and they are going to try to find more support or hopefully have a charge on our floor.

any advice, comments, or words of encouragement are appreciated!!

[HURN, BSN, RN]

OMG, I'm going through a similar thing. Same unit, but I work crazy day shift . Only have up to 6 patients, but night shift gets up to 8 and both shifts are almost always understaffed. Our resource or "charge" nurse usually has her own team, so she's sometimes not much of a resource to me. I feel like I need more support, and am actually looking into transferring to another unit. I know I should communicate more to my mgr on what I think I need, but I'm just ready to go. I made the same mistakes on Monday, signed off orders without catching the mistake. One of the seasoned nurses made a comment and I replied "well sorry, I can't focus when I'm overwhelmed and there's a lot going on". She made another comment that I took to heart and really upset me. The next morning I called out! You're not alone...I really don't have anything positive or uplifting to say because I feel like crap right now myself. But I've found just being able to share my experience and vent on this site is extremely helpful. Unless you have someone at home who completely understands what you go through at work, being able to release your frustrations; joys; tears; disappointments; anger and any other emotion is probably the most important thing in getting through this struggle! Wish nothing but the best for you and just know you are not alone. Reading your post was a little uplifting to me, because I know I'm not alone.

[Up2nogood RN, RN]

IWe always have ten patients each which seems like a lot and is pretty overwhelming to me. any advice, comments, or words of encouragement are appreciated!!

I didn't think that having 10 pts could be legal!!!! IMO I'd be looking for a new unit or another hospital that has realistic and safe staffing ratios. I'm in surgical oncology and we have 5-6 at night. It's only a matter of time before corners are cut and mistakes are made with that many pts. Being a new grad expect to make some errors (it happens to us all!) but with that many pts you're putting yourself at a greater risk, especially if you don't have a charge nurse or mentor you can ask questions and get advice from. Besides your license on the line there are lives at stake. Just my .