Freaking out here!!!!

[ashemson]

I just graduated in May, haven't taken boards yet, going to at the end of July. I just got a job at a nursing home as a grad PN, and I start tomorrow! My title when hired was "charge nurse". I am not even close to being comfortable working by myself, in charge of 1 med tech and 4 CNA's!! I get 7 days orientation per wing, and that's not much. I have worked in a hospital for three years as a secretary, and I know how some nurses eat their young, so I am hoping I don't get one of those while training. If anyone has any encouraging words or advice, bring it on!!!

[wisedome]

Peace,

Most nursing homes and in my personal exp the job title for all nurses are Charge Nurse or Team Leader. My orientation was about the same as yours but I had a lot of previous exp from working in a hospital, doctors' office, and going to nursing homes thru the agencies. Also, lucky to had 1 supportive friendly nurse that oriented me. The nursing home that I worked at had 9 floors. 1st fl was Special Care Unit/Dementia Unit, the 9th fl was Transitional Care Unit, and floors 2-8 were traditional nursing home setting. Every floor had the same set up, lay out. So if you work on one you worked on all of them. The difference came in with the staff, and some floors were heavier, more organized, had a great nurse manager, or great team work.

You could always try asking for a longer orientation.

Peace

Wisedome

[lindseylpn]

this sounds like a pretty good job to me, at the nursing home i used to work at i had 55 patient and only 2 cnas, no med tech and only one week training for the whole building. trust me, it will get easier once u get into a routine

[stillstudying]

As a new grad (just a few weeks ago!) I got 3 nights orientation on a 32 bed sub-acute unit. The 4th night I was on my own as charge nurse with 2 CNA's. Tube feedings, tons of blood sugar checks and insulin shots, dressing changes, flushing iv's, standard med pass at 2000 and 0600, svn's Q 2hrs and somebody ringing for pain meds every few minutes. Night shift is also responsible for completing the 24 hr report, filling out all the lab reqs (and obtaining some specimens) for the next day, cleaning out the staff fridge, monitoring the temps of the med fridge and the specimen fridge, filling out the daily accucheck test log, stocking the med carts, signing for and stocking the carts with the pharmacy med delivery, supervising the cna's, making sure my diabetics have an hs snack so they won't crash during the night, ordering med refills, answering and forwarding calls for the rest of the facility since the receptionist is gone, making sure everyone has their cpm machine on for however many hours they need to make up because they were "too busy" to wear it during the day, and whatever else needs doing...... and then there's charting.

Be open to suggestions on how to prioritize and be more efficient and ask, ask, ask questions on anything you don't have a clear understanding of. Have confidence in yourself that you will develop the skills you need to improve your performance and hang in there! Don't freak out - with the amount of orientation you're getting you'll be pretty well prepared to go it on your own. You can do this!