First months, and I still dont get the hang of it

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During my first months as a licensed nurse, I made a couple of mistakes already from wrong patient name in labs to forgotten perilight. No harm done to the patient though and everything was resolved. Whenever I have these moments, I would want to quit nursing and just hide under a rock for the rest of my life.

Like what happened with the perilight, I kept it on my mind and still I forgotten and the patient was exposed longer than the order. :( I feel so incompetent and I think about what might have happen if I didn't remember it earlier. I told my senior and she advised me to use an alarm to help me remember. I feel like I can't make it as a nurse:( Words of wisdom again fellow nurses. You people along with my friends are the ones keeping my sanity intact.

My question is: how do you keep things organized when you think about a lot of things for a lot of patients in a day.

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Hi NewlygradBSN,

Getting started is HARD. That said I'll tell you what I did. I'm 6 months into a RN position and my first few months I found myself forgetting all kinds of things too! After a while, I couldn't take missing things any more so I came up with a sheet to keep me organized. On it I put typical things I need to know, and that will need to get done during the shift. I highlight things in yellow that need to be done right away or at least must be completed in the next 1-4 hours. When I finish the task I put a line through it. Also another nurse on this forum had the same problem and someone put up their brain sheet, here's the link to the discussion:

Any hints on organizing patient info? - Nursing for Nurses

I used it as a template and reorganized it to what I needed to do. You've done well to realize you need a change, and you are actively looking for a way to improve. Good luck!

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Hide under a rock for the rest of your life?? Quit??? Don't be so hard on yourself!

Making mistakes is NORMAL. Sometimes that is how you learn. I PROMISE that you will make more in the future. Even the most experienced nurses forget things from time to time. What is important is that you learn from it... I bet you will be extra careful with matching patient names and labs from now on!

When timing is important for the sake of the patient's safety, I agree with excessive use of HIGHLIGHTERS! Write it down on your general worksheet of all of your patients, or your "paper brain," and put a big highlighted circle around it. Or write it really big on a post-it and stick it on top of your worksheet. Do you have a clipboard/checklist/schedule that you are crossing off as you go through the day?? For each patient: meds, assessments, accuchecks, etc?

It will get better! Don't give up so easily. :)

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

I just did a thread on this which I cannot emphasise enough:

WRITE IT DOWN!

You need a good cheat sheet or daily task sheet, whatever u call it.

It has the patient name down one side & times up the top (u can make one up yourself if ur hosp doesn't supply them). Go into work with ur cheat sheet, get handover, grab all the patient charts & document EVERYTHING u have to do. It's the only way I can usually remember. If u have IVs, big dressings, whatever start them early & leave extra time. U will not possible remember everything as there are too many interruptions & the ones that say they CAN remember everything, are lying as far as I'm concerned!

I don't know what else 2 say as I don't know ur ward routine, but this may help a little.

ADD: Forgot to say get a 4 coloured pen & write things in diff colours, ie: meds in green, IVs in red, etc. That helps a lot too!

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