New Grads after 6 months: How do you feel?

Nurses New Nurse

Published

Specializes in Tele, ED/Pediatrics, CCU/MICU.

I've hit the 6 month mark.......and the warm-fuzzy feelings that I had toward the end of my preceptorship have evaporated.

Before work, I now find myself feeling anxious, nauseated, and afraid....yet hopeful.

I think this is for a variety of reasons:

1. There is no longer a preceptor by my side to encourage, guide, and safeguard

2. I'm adjusting to the lack of bathroom breaks, meal breaks, and rest

3. I'm coming face to face with my inadequacies--there are so many meds to know, so many different patient presentations, so much paperwork, so many personalities to work with, and so many "different" family members to answer to

4. I am hating the fact that I can't get through a day without messing something up and feeling like an idiot

5. I am horrified at how easy it is to make serious errors

6. I am frightened by the amount of responsibility this job entails, yet I am proud of myself for attaining it

Is this a common way to feel at this point? I've heard over and over "after your first year, you'll feel much better."

Is there such a thing as the 6 month slump? :confused:

0 Votes
Specializes in ICU.

they all say the same on my unit too - "after a year, you will feel differently"

i am only at the 2mth mark, so that feels like a long way away.

i agree with what you said about how easy it is to make a serious error, and that alone is enough to scare the pants off of me each day that i walk onto my unit.

when i first got off preceptorship, i wasn't taking breaks etc, but i soon realized the importance of this - not only was i dehydrated, my patients probably weren't receiving the best care from me, considering i hadn't taken a few minutes to rest and regroup. i don't always take the full break, especially since sometimes it is impossible w/ new admits, and whatever else is going on, but those few moments off the floor to sit (without callbells, phones, "nurse! nurse!" & montiors bleeping) make all the difference

0 Votes
Specializes in Licensed Practical Nurse.

well i'm a new grad lpn with 6 mo experience this month, all of the above also horrifies me but what also scares me is that its so easy to get blamed for others mistakes!! long story short i work perdiem and filled in for the day nurses who called in, lets just say they left the floor in a whole mess the day before and didnt give correct patient care, me and the other nurse basically had to clean everything up while the supervisor nearly blew up with anger! i just wanna be the nurse who has like 100 yrs experience and can handle anything! its gotta get better with time, i believe!!:zzzzz

0 Votes

After 6 months of nursing, I felt like I had made the biggest/most expensive mistake of my life. I dreaded going to work, I secretly wished I would get sick so I could call off. Things started getting better a little bit at a time and somehow I started liking my job. I am a little past the year mark now and I love my job.

0 Votes
Specializes in Trauma ICU, Surgical ICU, Medical ICU.

I am approaching 4 months, and I feel the same way. There are days I wish I'd wreck on the way to work just so I could miss a day. I work in a MICU and I feel constantly overwhelmed with information and I feel like I should know and remember so much more than I do. I just try and tell myself it will get better. Hopefully it will! Good luck to you!

0 Votes
Specializes in Education, Administration, Magnet.

I feel the same way. I have already figured out that the unit I am working on is not what I want to do for the rest of my career. I hate the feeling of going to work and dreading it. But I only have 7 more days before my maternity leave, and after that I will be applying to different units. Life is to short.

0 Votes

You might want to ask the General Nursing Discussions forum as well, to get the perspective of nurses who have worked well beyond a year.

I've heard that it gets better once the first year is done, although nursing is a difficult job no matter how far you're out. I think it's been made more difficult by many things wrong with the health care system (e.g., hospitals not hiring enough nurses in order to save money, way too many documentation requirements, and mandatory overtime, among other systemic problems).... but that's another story.

0 Votes
Specializes in Home Health Care.
I am approaching 4 months, and I feel the same way. There are days I wish I'd wreck on the way to work just so I could miss a day. I work in a MICU and I feel constantly overwhelmed with information and I feel like I should know and remember so much more than I do. I just try and tell myself it will get better. Hopefully it will! Good luck to you!

:rotfl: So funny, but not~ (secretely I've thought that a time or too!)

0 Votes
:rotfl: So funny, but not~ (secretely I've thought that a time or too!)

Talking about wrecking on way to work...

Me three, but I didn't want everyone to think I was sadistic or anything .

0 Votes
Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

I'm not scared to call doctors anymore, I feel like I'm getting a handle on everything. In my opinion I feel like I still ask a lot of dumb questions, but whatever. I guess I feel a lot more confident than even 2 or 3 months ago (I'm hitting my 7 month mark on the floor). Sometimes there are situations that can make me feel a bit flustered but I'm generally pretty easygoing so I don't think it bothers me as much as other people.

I guess I'm more comfortable with my inadequacies, and more comfortable with the skills needed to do the job, so to speak. Repetition has really done wonders. I haven't had a patient complain about anything in a long time. I've also gotten some good feedback by name through call-backs and those surveys they mail out. I guess that's played a huge part in boosting my confidence level quite a bit as well - knowing that even if a patient seems unhappy they might still think I'm doing a good job. There was this patient who I was convinced thought I was the worst nurse ever, but ended up writing a page and half about how compassionate I was and how they looked forward to when I came on shift. That really made an impression on me; because I realized that really it wasn't the patient, it was just my perception of what I thought the patient was thinking. I think I've improved my communication skills a lot.

Even when I'm scared and don't know what the heck I've learned to wing it and look like I know what I'm doing. Even if it's something I only ever got to do on dummies back in nursing school. Like NGs, I did my first insertion OTJ but I think I did a good job of hiding my shaking hands...it's just gotten easier and easier with practice and I don't get very nervous at all about it anymore (unless there are tons of family members staring at me...that still gets to me).

I'm also huge on efficiency as a benchmark of my own performance. Balancing care, education, and speed; with safety at the forefront of all that. Trying to get everything done within a set amount of time. I think I'm probably about 500% more efficient than when I started.

Overall I think my perceptions are slowly changing and it's making a huge difference. I'm hoping that by the time a year rolls around it will have gotten even better. It was the same thing when I was a nurse aide; it took me about a year and after that I could have done my job with one hand tied behind my back.

0 Votes
Specializes in ER, Medicine.

I never had warm and fuzzy feelings. If I did they must have been incredibly short lived.

Anyway, my satisfaction with my job is a little low.

1. Not having a preceptor anymore is okay...but sometimes I do wish I had that guidance and a helping hand anyway.

2. Sometimes, the CNAs I get aren't very helpful and unfortunately I can't do their job on top of my own. Having a not so good CNA really makes the day a horrible one.

3. I hate having my phone ring allll day long. Same thing with the overhead paging system. Sometimes you just can't answer every call right then and there. It's worse if you don't know what the heck the person on the other end is talking about. And it's doubly worse if family calls and wants to talk my ear off.

4. Speaking of talking my ear off...I love those patients that want to talk, but I think some of them don't realize I have other patients and they are just as needy if not moreso. Talking a lot in general gets on my nerves as I really don't have the time. I've got to learn how to tell people I don't have the time to talk to them for 10 minutes without sounding rude or uncaring. This is a huge issue for me right now and I'm struggling with it.

5. Paperwork. I'm figuring it out, little by little.

6. Never having the med I need when I need it. It's not in any Pixis and it's not in the lockboxes, it's not at the nurses station and it's not sitting in a pneumatic tube...I think i call pharmacy at least 10 times a day.

7. Rushing. I'm always rushing. And at the end of the day I hate to do it, but I still have things I have to leave for the next shift and it's horrible because no one ever leaves stuff for me to do. If so it's nothing serious. Whereas I'll be like, "The IV needs to be restarted in room 10, there's a new order for room 12 (even though the order is 3 hours old), there's bloodwork to be drawn in room 14, there's meds to get from the pharmacy for room 15, there's a dressing and wound culture to be done in room 16, straight cath for room 18...etc, etc, etc." It makes me look like I did nothing the whole day when there could be nothing further from the truth.

It's stressful. Extremely stressful. :wtosts:

I think I feel...tired.

0 Votes
Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

4. speaking of talking my ear off...i love those patients that want to talk, but i think some of them don't realize i have other patients and they are just as needy if not moreso. talking a lot in general gets on my nerves as i really don't have the time. i've got to learn how to tell people i don't have the time to talk to them for 10 minutes without sounding rude or uncaring. this is a huge issue for me right now and i'm struggling with it.

this is kind of lame, but sometimes if i can't think of a way to break off a conversation with a patient, i'll look out the door and nod like someone is out there, wave, say, "ok!" and then say, "whoops i gotta run i'll be back later hit the call light if you need anything!" heheheh. i'm a good actor though...otherwise i wouldn't advise trying this.

also, i've found avoiding fatty foods before/during work and getting plenty of b vitamins works wonders for my energy levels and overall attitude.

i don't always take the full break, especially since sometimes it is impossible w/ new admits,

i feel you on that. i don't always take the full break either. not that i'm behind, but mostly because i get bored. i end up wandering back to the floor 15 or 20 minutes early most of the time.

0 Votes
+ Add a Comment