Feeling overwhelmed at times

[mercRN]

I am a new RN in a rural community. I work in the ED, where I wanted to work, I just went to 12 hr night shift where I will probably continue to work. We have 2 hospitals in our town which merged 7 years ago and the other hospital is considered our trauma ED, level III. In our ED we get mainly the pediatric pt, the OB patients and the psych patients. At times I feel like I don't know much about some of the cardiac drugs and trauma drugs since we don't use them where I work at that much. I never give a med unless I know why it is being used and I know I need to know what some of these drugs are used for, will that come with time or should I continue to stress when my coordinator says "Why would you use dopamine" beings as how we don't use it very often. We have cheat sheets in all of the rooms on calculating drips but I also figure them out myself since the sheets could be wrong.

[Rapheal]

Being a new RN in itself is tough. May I recommend that you get a palm pilot and download epocrates (a free drug guide). It is really good and it's like having a quick, easy drug book at your fingertips. Good luck.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Take the sheets when you have a minute and check their accuracy, then you WILL have a shortcut in a pinch, and USE them.