How time efficient are you?

I started working in January and have sped up quite a bit since then....but when I get hit with something unfamiliar, it slows me waaaay down. At six weeks, I was moving about as fast as a turtle with no legs climbing up the side of a volcano.

yeah slowly you will see that you improve, and just when you feel like each day is going smoothly and everything is early and on time, they will start to give you the harder patients and then you will start from square one again. that's where I am now.

I've never had to delegate anything to anyone and this last week, every night I worked I needed to ask for help to get everything done with some semblance of sanity left.

There is one thing in being "slow at tasks" but it something else to be "safe at tasks". If you have never done this procedure or given a medication before I would expect and your preceptor should expect you to slow down to make sure you are doing/ drawing up the medication correctly. You don't get a second chance to correct a med error once the med is given. Don't let anyone give you a hard time for being safe!

Well that just my two cents! :)

I ask because I have been in the ER for 6 weeks now, and although I'm not dragging my feet by any means, I still don't feel like I'm fast enough in completing my tasks.

Yesterday I had a patient who required moderate sedation for a shoulder reduction. I had never given etomidate before, so it took me several minutes to look and draw it up. I also had never completed the related moderate sedation paperwork, so that took me another several minutes. My preceptor was visibly irritated with me for being slow, and I told her several times that if it was a crucial time-issue thing that needed to be done quickly then I was fine with her doing it even though it was in my assigned room. She told me that she wanted me to do it because it was a good learning experience, but became more and more annoyed as I went through the paperwork.

It sounds like your preceptor doesn't really need to be precepting. To repeatedly get irritated when a newbie preceptee isn't working as fast as they deem necessary leads to added stress on the newbie, and a GREATLY increased chance of the newbie making an unpleasant mistake.

If this behavior by your preceptor continues, you might want to have a one-to-one chat with them. If that doesn't work, you might consider meeting with your manager to see if another person could precept you.

Time management is one of the things that was hardest for me to pick up during my 4 month long Critical Care Fellowship. Is IS doable, though, so please don't beat yourself up for not being fully up to speed.

I've been working on my own in our ICU for about 6 months, and am still improving on MY time management "system." If the way that works for you isn't exactly the same as your preceptor, so what (as long as your way is safe for the pt). Everybody does things a little differently.

Your time management will get better. It just takes time.