This is my first time writing a topic but I've been coming here for the past 2 years as a source of comfort and that feeling of I'm not alone in how I am feeling/doing. Sorry, this is going to be long...
So, I have been a nurse for a little over 2 years but, I started out as a new grad in postpartum. Our postpartum floor is very specialized where we never start IVs, hardly ever have to draw labs/tests/exams. Usually, the only labs we look for are H/H and WBCs. Sometimes we get med surg overflow but hardly ever. When I was a new grad, my education was mainly mother/baby with no med surg training, I had to learn on the fly how to take care of the med surg patients and ask a lot of questions to other nurses who did have a med surg background. I decided to leave postpartum b/c on the off chance that our floor did get a med surg patient, I would be the one to get them and of course something 'bad' would happen to them such as a cyst would burst after surgery, or a patient would become septic, or something would always happen to me. The other nurses, who have been on the floor for 15 years said that nothing has ever happened before. That scared me so much that I didn't know what to do in those situations so I decided that I needed to get med surg experience.
I was hired to a med surg floor! I was super excited but, it was the hardest surgical floor in the hospital.. It's a step-down ICU with emphasis on trauma, transplant, and GI. To say that I struggled is an understatement. B/c I was not technically a 'new grad' anymore, I was only given 4 weeks to train. When I encounter something new, I take some time in the beginning to learn things but once I get it, I'm really good.. so, my orientation was extended to another 4 weeks (8 weeks in total).
I was hired for day/night and while on days, my day preceptor was amazing. She was strict but never made me feel like I was dumb, she never belittled me, and was always open and honest. Once I passed days, I felt somewhat confident that I could handle this floor. But nights was something else...
Did I mention that my night preceptor was very, very unkind to me? She kind of shot what little confidence I had in myself (being new to med surg and new to the floor) by telling me "I wouldn't want you to be my nurse" b/c it took me, in her opinion too long to chart that I hung a fluid bag in the computer and she said this IN FRONT OF THE PATIENT or "Don't rely on your brain, you're looking at your brain too much"-and when she would ask me a question regarding the patient, I obviously can't remember everything and wouldn't know the answer, she would get upset. She would literally be 5inches away from my face whenever I charted anything and I would get super nervous and click the wrong thing and she would say things like "nope, that wrong, why are you charting that?" She is not approachable at all for questions, but I'm new and I have questions, so I would try to not ask but once I did muster up the courage to ask, she would say something like " I already told you this but..." with a lot of eye rolling. the list goes on and on..
Imagine being told every day that you're not a good nurse, that you're never going to make it, that I wouldn't want you to be my nurse, how would that make you feel? Every day I would make more mistakes b/c I was anxious and nervous..and every day it would be something else that I did wrong...
We would have weekly meetings with the manager and preceptor. After my second day training with her, she straight up told the manager and I, that she thinks I'm not a good fit for the floor. Which, is her opinion but I think she should have told me first instead of me being blind sided. She was very supportive of me in front of the manager but someone else when it was just her and I.. there were some other things but pretty much she failed me and rightfully so b/c I kept making mistakes..
I tried to go back to postpartum but there were no openings. The ladies on my floor made a petition for me to be able to come back without me knowing but if there's no money, then there can't be a position open for me. The fact that the nurses on postpartum wanted me to come back and worked so hard for me to be able to come back, I think speaks a lot about the kind of nurse I am. I am a good nurse, I work hard, I am a team player, the patients love me... but failing this has completely shot my confidence as a nurse.
Fast forward to present day, I am now on a new med surg floor, but b/c I am still not a 'new grad', I only get 3 days of training... and if I fail this orientation then I will be fired from the hopsital. So that is not an option. But I think I passed b/c according to the manager I am a safe nurse and that is all she is looking for. But, I still only have 2 months and 3 days of med surg experience and there is still so much I don't know. I over heard a few of the nurses talking about me saying, "she doesn't know how to do that?!" or "we can't have slow nurses on our floor!" or I would get yelled at b/c I didn't know what labs to look out for specific disease processes. I also know that this job that I got, was supposed to be for an aid on the floor so I am guessing that people are upset that I got this job via senority... I don't know what to do...
On that floor, it's both. Step down and med surg. I had a few patients who were transferred from the ICU with tele monitors, o2 mask, on a heparin drip. It was a bit crazy.
Thank you for the advice! I will be attempting to use it tomorrow at work. Ugh, you'd think nurses would be the nicest most caring people in the world. But, I learned that is not the case.
zoomonkey
8 Posts
On that floor, it's both. Step down and med surg. I had a few patients who were transferred from the ICU with tele monitors, o2 mask, on a heparin drip. It was a bit crazy.