Feeling overwhelmed

[Katniss88]

I recently got my first job as an RN on an ortho floor and have just completed six days on the job. During my nursing school preceptorship I was given 2-5 patients, but most of the time it was 3 and it was on an ortho/telemetry floor. I got used to things on that floor and I felt somewhat comfortable and went about my normal routine. My preceptor let me go on my own and was available whenever I had questions or needed help with anything. At times I felt a little overwhelmed when I had 3 or more patients, especially when everyone had 0900 meds and I had to wait for my preceptor to login to the pyxis and then with all the charting, but by the end of my preceptorship I felt good about it and felt a little comfortable.

Now that I am an RN and in orientation for my first nursing job I can't help but feel like I am in first semester clinicals during nursing school. I feel lost at times and very overwhelmed. They don't have tablets for each nurse to carry around to patients rooms to chart meds, so they print off a MAR. I feel very uneasy about using paper MARs because in nursing school they always said don't use printed MARs because orders can change. Some meds the doctor wants to give a half dose instead of the full dose because of the patients age, I have found an error where the pharmacist put the full dose on the MAR or they put a medication on the MAR that the patient shouldn't receive because of their age. I was told by another nurse that you have to really watch when it comes to medications because of these mistakes. Each doctor has their own preference when it comes to orders and they are pretty much the same all the time so most of the nurses there have memorized them so they already know what the doctor wants without looking at the orders. I have a hard time reading the orders on the paper chart because most of the doctors have the most awful handwriting that I can't even begin to make out what it says and I am scared to sign my name to it because I worked so hard to get the title RN and I don't want to make a huge mistake by signing something I don't understand. My fourth day I had to call report on an patient who was being discharged to another facility, I wasn't organized and she was asking me so many questions and I had to keep looking through the chart, it was such a horrible experience that I felt sick the rest of the day.

I am very thankful for my first nursing job and it was actually one of my first choices of where I wanted to work because I had some clincials there during nursing school and I thought it was a great experience. My preceptors so far have been great and very nice. When I don't know everything it terrifies me because I always am thinking about what if this happens and what should I do. I know as a new nurse it takes time, but I always worry about stuff that I can't change.