yesterday was FIRST day! is this how it always is?

[ncriverrat]

Hey guys!

Passed my boards around a month ago, did orientation, all that. Yesterday was my first day on the floor- meg/surg floor.

Anyways, all I did yesterday was follow another nurse around. She was an LPN. Is it the norm to give a new RN an LPN to orient with? Honestly, I'm not really sure what LPN can/can't do within their scope of practice, so maybe it is the norm to put an RN with an LPN?

But I get there and they put me with her because they said "she is the best nurse on the floor". She's been at this hospital, on this floor, for 11 years.

I am scared that they said she is the "best" nurse they have on the floor. She didn't even do a full assessment on ANY of her patients, just checked why they were in the hospital, for example resp. problem- and listened to lungs, etc.

She was giving meds WAY out of the hour timeframe- and I mean like even 3 hours late.

She was talking to me about another co-workers "hygeine" problem(body odor) which I thought was inappropriate.

She kept talking about how nursing students from one nursing school do nothing, and make the worst nurses. just happens to be the school i went to

She was unorganized too- never checking meds more than once, taking meds for several patients in one room, trying to keep them seperate, almost giving a patient meds twice, etc.

Didn't get anyone to double check insulin, etc. She would just sign another nurses initials.

The whole day was filled with "well I know this isn't the right way but....." and things like that.

Honestly- I just got out of nursing school and I know that not all nurses do things the right way, etc., but she kept me a nervous wreck the whole day.

So, basically, I know, that I am a new nurse, and no experience, and I know things aren't going to be exactly like I was taught in school, but are most floors this way? Some of these things seemed pretty major to me- especially for the "best nurse on the floor". I mean she was nice and everything, but it worries me some. Should I be worried?

Thanks for reading, and thanks for any input!!

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

I think I may have worded my post wrong about her being an LPN- I wasn't trying to ask if these problems were because of her BEING an LPN- I have great respect for them, and the best nurse I know is an LPN. I should have clarified a little better- what I really mean is that I think I saw her do a couple of things that may not be in her scope of practice.

I hope it didn't sound like I was belittling LPN's or anything like that; that was DEF. not where I was going with that, sorry if it came out wrong!

Actually, I was responding to some of the responses you got about not being precepted by an LPN.

steph

[mamason]

Thanks for the replies!

Something I'm scared about is that one of the nurses WILL put my initials down for double checking insulin. Where I work double checking is required, and it scares me to think that someone may just put my initials down and then the amount be wrong and something happen.

As far as the assessment, what bothered me is that while she was only focusing on one area, she would document that she did the WHOLE assessment, and of course all the patients were doing great according to her assessment.

I work again saturday, and I am with someone else. Hopefully it will go much better, but I am still worried about having nurses on the floor who treat patient care like this.

Putting someone else's initials down is falsifying documents. If there is a way for you to check if your i nitials are being used, then check. If they are being used, then report it immediatley. I wouldn't like this situation either.

[kukukajoo, LPN]

She may have snowed the higher ups! Sounds like she is a little too confident in her job and that is recipe for disaster.

Please don't think of it as a bad day or that everything went wrong- you had the sense to KNOW it was impromper and just got the best case of a good example of a bad example!

Make yourself a promise that after 11 years on the floor you will still be as consentious as you are now and you will soar!

[JentheRN05, RN]

Well - to clarify MY response - I was just trying to come up with a reason for her to get out from under her. Really wasn't meant to be a cut on LPNs sorry if it came off that way.

I have alot of respect for some LPNs. But others - well I can say there are some that get under my skin. But I can say the same thing about RNs there are good ones and there are bad ones.

I had a bad experience very early on in my education with an LPN - working WAY out of her scope of practice, blatantly lying and provoking ONLY RNs. So that started me off wrong.

All it took though was to find a mentor - one that taught me alot, only to find out later that she was an LPN.

So - now I can see both sides pretty clearly.

Again - it was NOT meant to be a smear on LPNs just trying to give her the only excuse I could think of at the time to get her out of the predicament she's in. I was drawing a blank.

[Sisukas]

There should be no documents in the chart that allow only initials without a signature. I believe that if someone falsifies your initials, that's an easy way to catch it. Just make sure to consistently sign all of your documents so that they can't say that you usually forget.