First Day as RN

Hello all!

I just passed my boards 3 weeks ago and today, I completed system orientation today of the hospital I will be working at. Luckily for me, the hospital I'll be working at is the one at which I did most of my clinical experiences. The floor I got hired on, I only did about 3-4 weeks (which is about 8 days) of clinical time there. It is an Acute Medical Inpatient unit -- like the 'medical' part of the medsurg type of floors (the floor above mine is the surgical portion).

Anyway, in school, we are only ever given one patient on clinical. Then, you enter your internship - I chose to do mine in our ER so everything there is really different than that of a typical unit (patient load, charting, patient turnover, etc.). I went to visit my new unit today, and counted that there were only 2-3 nurses, each having 7-8 patients. This makes me really nervous because, like I said, I've never had that many patients. Even during my internship, the most patients we had at a time was 4-5, and the pace is very quick, so there were times I would lose track of who was there for what and who was discharged, etc.

I'm really nervous to be entering this environment. My orientation will be 6 weeks long, and while I'm sure that's sufficient, I'm still nervous. I'll be rotating between 2 different preceptors also (nights/days).

Does anyone have any advice on how to 'prepare' for the first day? Is there anything in particular that I should take (aside from lunch, pens, stethoscope, etc.)? And do you have any words of wisdom as to how to handle a patient load like that? I've never been exposed to that many, so I'm kind of freaking out and afraid I won't be able to handle it. My confidence level in my knowledge has always been low which just adds to my anxiousness. I passed my boards, so, surely I can handle this, right?!