First Nursing job, and I drowned!

[galenanurse]

Hello everyone,

I am so stressed, I finally was hired as a new nurse, and fired after only 3 months

I have been through hell, I went thru a divorce while in nursing school, chemo & radiation for cancer, and now I am feeling totally worthless, and am not sure if I am cut out to be a nurse?

Here was my situation, please point out where I slipped?

I was hired at a skilled nursing facility/nursing home, and was given 3 days out of an 8 day orientation period and put on the floor early due to shortage. I worked second shift, and had to come in a half an hour early for the weekly mandatory meeting. I was supposed to be on the floor by two, after report, and be ready to pass meds by 2:30. I worked the skilled until dealing with pt's the facility had never taken on before; there were 3 tube feeding, wounds, pt's on rounds the clock narc's, ect ... pt's that needed a lot of time sensitive care.

Our meeting went 3 hrs late, I wasn't allowed to start my shift until 5:30, all my feeding were behind, and when I was finally able to get out on the floor I was told I was the only nurse on both wings, with no med aide, and to top it off I had two new admits! I was very stressed, this was a huge load. I asked the ADON for help, and she said no she had to go pick out her wedding music.

I pulled out both meds carts, and passed meds priority first instead of one hall after another. I know this probably wasn't the best way to handle the shift, but I had tube feeding, and time sensitive meds that were already late, and as a new new nurse w/o experience that's what seemed right to do? I also had skin skeets that had to be done asap on our new admits & they both were on coumadin & covered head to toe with bruises!

Long story short I made a few med errors, and was devastated with myself. I was drowning with out a life boat to save me! I look back at the situation, and did the best I could, but still feel terrible. I was fired for med errors, but the DON said to still use her as a reference, that I was a very compassionate nurse, and every one liked me.

I need to get my confidence back and start applying for new jobs,My question is what to put on my applications now? I only worked there 3 months?

Thank you for listening.....

J

[darrell]

Skimming replies, the part about learning from past mistakes and experience seems the most productive advice.

Being new, you likely had no idea that you could refuse the assignment right at report if it was unsafe. This is facility-independent, although it could easily result in being fired. Still, your license would be safe. Please note that if you had pulled the shift off, you would likely have found yourself facing similar situations more frequently. It's about the money, after all...

I liked the part where you had the presence of mind to prioritize even under pressure. Well done.

D

[Wishinonastar, BSN]

There was a time when people recommended LTC for nurses who could not handle the pace of a hospital but this is exactly why it is WRONG! In a hospital you are not responsible for so many patients at once and you have other nurses around for questions, etc. No nurse should be on her own in LTC for at least a year. Your whole first year is a massive transition from school to reality and a learning process where you develop essential assessment skills. After that, you have the ability to triage priorities and juggle responsibilities. Nurses should have a LONG internship type orientation after school.

My advice is to be honest with an employer, make it short without a ton of excuses "I was a new nurse on my own and had to pass meds for XX number of patients. I was running behind and made a couple of errors in my rush and was let go". They will ask for details- were meds late? Wrong med? Missed med? Discovered later and corrected? Get ready, you will have to have a way to explain.

I would not recommend you go back into the fire of LTC. I know what it is like to pass meds for a whole floor with tube feedings, treatments, etc. I suspect that med errors happen constantly in LTC and only few are actually noticed. It is not humanly possible to pass every med on time for that many patients who need them put through tubes, crushed, etc. You really have to have a good handle no nursing in general to cope with it. Please, try hospitals or psych (lots of meds but better staffed) or even a well staffed MR where you won't be responsible for so many at a time until you get more confidence and competence.

[holisticallyminded]

That sounds like a terrible place to work! I also just started in a SNF and my orientation ends when I'm ready for it end. No pressure! And there's no way they'd leave me to fry to like that. Be glad you got out. You don't need that.

[Primeranurse]

First of all, I'm sorry for all of the things you have had to go through. Nursing school itself is stressful, not to mention marital problems and illness. I have been a nurse for over 20 years and the best piece of advice I can give you is 1) Give yourself a break! You did the best you could with limited resources, no help from management and it wasn't your fault!! 2) It's hard enough to be a new nurse in any situation, even with a good orientation and adequate staffing and 3) Lift your head up, shoulders back, take a deep breath and move forward. Don't let a bad experience at a terrible facility break your spirit or sour your view of nursing. Find an area of nursing that you are interested in, start looking at facilities and try to get "word of mouth" information on it. When you interview, take a good look around as they walk you through the unit (and if they don't offer), ask to see it. Do NOT accept a position without checking out the unit and observing the staff. Start looking at yourself as an asset. It sounds to me like you are a motivated nurse because you took the initiative to get the work done. You are only one person and cannot do it all. Nurses tend to think that we can and should fix everything and that is just impossible. Good luck on your future endeavors and don't give up!

[silverbat]

oh my! What a horrid place. I think they should be reported to their state regulatory agency. ALso, I agree with the poster who suggested writing to the mangement company of the facility and telling all. Give names, dates, and details! Even if they are the only game in town, I truly doubt you want to work there again.

As for the several posters who suggest NOT WORKING IN AN LTC.. WHAT THE HECK???? Who do you suppose will take care of those residents if NO ONE is working there?!!!!!! DO they WANT only BAD care, with staff NO ONE WILL HIRE???? Come on!!!!!!! LTC NEEDS good staff, well trained that challenge BAD care scenarios like this and CHANGE them!! LTC care is not just custodial care, waiting for the residents to die. It is ongoing, supportive, in some cases, rehabilliatative care that helps residents to remain/return to the LEAST restrictive environment they can be at for as long as they can. Heavan help us all if care is given ONLY by staff and management that does not care and is understaffed and that type of condition is allowed to continue!!!!!

This type of facility NEEDS to be reported and hounded until they either CHANGE or go out of service. THAT would be positive.

From your OP, you seem caring, knowledgeable and strong. This was a horried situation and I am glad you are not there. PLEASE do not judge all nursing homes by this experience. I would not use it on my resume, either. The DON is being nice to you so you will hesitate to turn them in. GO FOR IT.

BTW...I have had 15 yrs hospital and 6 years LTC. Bad situations happen. Change ONLY happens when good people FIGHT for the change.

[trixey]

Hello first time nurse

I work in the UK and have nursed in South Africa and in the UK for a number of years, and have never read anything as dreadful as your story.

Firstly, do you have a union to represent you, if your answer was yes, you could have taken your employers to town, you were in a critically dangerous situation and am not surprised you made a mistake and would have had every right to ask for help. Where was your manager,why couldnt she or he help, do you not have agency staff or bank staff as we call them here.

Ideally you could have stipulated to your Manager that you can only do what is humanly possible and will write a statement to keep for yourself and one for your manager which she or he should sign that they have read it, you could then take this to your union for representation.

I am keen to work in Canada and sincerely hope that I will not experience anything like this.

I hope I helped you.

Keep your head up high, You will find the right job.

[RunAwayNurse]

I'm so very sorry that you had to go through what you did but you made it out alive and with your license. It seems that this has become common practice for most LTC facilities today. I work in LTC now and compared to most, my facility is not as bad as I thought after I applied to a facility that was only 9 miles from my home and I thought that this would be wonderful, being so close to home but red flags :redlight:should have registered when I filled out my application. I expected for them to say "We will check your references and get back with you for an interview" but instead, after talking with the DON, I was shuffled down the hall and handed a urine cup for a drug screen and told what day orientation would be. I attended the orientation, which was an all day thing and all the while keeping my eyes and ears open picking up on things that would alert me of any impending danger that may be ahead, so after orientation, I spoke with the staffing coordinator regarding scheduling and she asked me how many residents am I currently taking care of and I told her about 30 and she said, "you'll have about 45" and I said to myself, I might be able to handle 15 more residents than I have now and this is on the 7p-7a shift, well, I was not to start work for another 2 weeks because I was working my 2 weeks notice out. In the mean time, I decided to do a little research of my own by talking to the nurses that work on this shift and what I found out was shocking to me, she told me of all the duties that were required plus I would not have 45 residents but more like 55 and if the unit becomes full I would have 60 residents to give medications to plus do treatments and a host of other responsiblities. About a week before I was to start the job, I told my DON that I wanted to keep my job and I kindly wrote a letter to the DON of the other facility, thanking her for the opportunity that she gave me to work at her facility but that I had done a little research and find that with the current workload and number of residents that I would have, it would not be safe for me or the residents if I accepted this job and that I would not be able to do my very best under such circumstances and that I wished her the best in finding a few "good men" to fill the positions she had available, lol. I have been working in LTC for about 7 years and have learned how to avoid a problem before it even begins and it by chance, I'm unable to pick up on a problem from the beginning, it's usually not long before I do. As my name implies, I do just that, lol. No sense in sticking around, waiting for my health to fail in a job that I know is trying to kill me and has only one thing on their minds, "MONEY",so don't you dare feel bad and put down on yourself for something that was done to you. You did the best that you could, under such working conditions, if it had been me, that would have been the last shift that I would have worked for them. Keep your head up and you will find something that you love doing and remember, if at all possible, do as much research as you can about a place, you will be saving wasted time and trouble by avoiding a place altogether because if a place is really bad, chances are, someone will know or will have heard about it and can tell you what you need to know about it. Good luck and I hope you find just what you are looking for and that you will be happy with it. :clpty:

Best Wishes,

RunAwayNurse

[symplicatedRN]

Goodness gracious!

First of all, I am sorry things went the way they did for you. I am 6 weeks into my 8 week orientation in the grad nurse residency program at my LTC/Rehab center. My mentors have been great, I feel well-trained, and the patient load for nurses is as little as 8 (on the TCU unit) to 30 (on the LTC unit). I've taken about 80% of the patient load so far on my own, and despite the fact that the nurses tell me I am ready to fly on my own, I feel a bit frazzled at times.

I agree that you should just leave them off your resume. With 3 months or with 0 months, you are still a new grad. It looks better to have a clean slate then a negative mark, even if it was at the fault of the facility. Nurse Managers have a way of anticipating all the bad that can happen based on your past mistakes, and they may interpret this scenario as an inability to advocate for yourself and perform safely.

You handled the situation like a pro otherwise, and it sounds like given the proper orientation, support, and assignment, you will be a superb nurse at your next job!

[mnlb97]

Do not worry, everything we go through is to make us stronger! God will not give you more than you can bare. It is good to vent and get things off your chest but watch what you say about yourself! This type of stuff happens to the best of us but don't let if get you down. You are the bomb and believe it!

[mardel9113]

I totally understand you I went to something similar. I went through 8 preceptors de first 12 days of work(one month),because my original preceptor hurt her self. than I wor 3 days and sent me to a ICU- med/surgery division, training for 5 weeks in other hospital, 40 hours a week plus 86 hours in the computer at home. went back to the floor, doing very well, pt and Dr loved me, but at week 5 I had an argument with my preceptor that was already advised from the CEO of training and education that she needed to change her attitude with me, they fired me telling me that clinically I reach my goal but I did not progressed as I needed. To make it the short staory I was 5 month killing myself and being a great nurse for this? My preceptor is not a nice person and she believed that she was my boss. but my boss did not have any authority plus I found that she was constantly lying about my period of orientation and how well I was doing. Now, I am appealing because my resume is ruined for people who does not like to teach and people who does not care really for the pt, they only care for themselves.

do not let them ruin your self esteem. Go for it!!!

[gardengal1, ASN, RN]

You will look back on this after some time has passed and you will be very, very glad you were fired. It doesn't seem like this right now but there may be something much better waiting in the wings for you. You were in an impossible situation, tried your best to make it through this nightmare and you ended up on the losing end. There is no feelings of satisfaction from this job being placed in this mess and, after time, you will probably realize how lucky you are to get out of there. Keep moving forward, be ready to explain the situation to other future employers and hopefully, you will find the right fit for you. Good Luck!

[jeffreyballentine]

I don't have any experience as a nurse...I'm a student nurse in my final year with just clinical experience. So, "real world?" Um, not so much so...However, I have lots of experiences in management because I'm older...LOL! Real, qualified nurses can tell you the actual thoughts and feedback. I can however, offer you one valuable piece of advice....remember....and many people forget this....interviews work both ways...often times, we're so busy trying to get the job that we forget an important question, "Why should I work here? What do YOU offer me?" You can get jobs. And you will get another job. However, you can do two things that will help - outside of the practical advice that some of the skilled, trained, c history RN have that I don't - first, what makes you happy about nursing? What did you enjoy the most? Where do you want to go? Because that's a good first step. Secondly? Spend time investigating your job interview...do homework and background...it's much easier than you think....yes, they want to interview you...but again, you need to interview them. Don't make it a one way process. Hope I learn from these posts and advice from the really great and willing to share nurses....