The title doesn't even begin to say how horrible I feel. :-(
I just graduated in May with my BSN. I did very well in school, graduated with honors. I am in my later 30's and this is a second career for me. I was one of the fortunate ones to get a job prior to graduation. I went to work in a large teaching hospital in a surgical ICU. Very very sick patients. I had a capstone and an additional clinical rotation through an ICU and let me tell you, those were like out the door ready for discharge med surg units compared to the level of critical acuity at my new job. I swear I was caring for the sickest of the sick in the entire metropolitan area. Our unit was also an overflow for critical medical and cancer patients so there was no telling what kind of patient I was going to care for each night. Some nights I had a patient with platelets at 5, other nights I had blood shooting out of a fresh arm amputation, and I still have nightmares about the rapid response and code pagers going off.
To say I felt overwhelmed is an understatement. The standard nursing procedure/charting itself wasn't overwhelming.....but the level of acuity and just how unstable and sick these patients was! I took 2 patients per night, and just started my 4th week of orientation. My preceptor is a nightmare. I have been trapped in an "eat my young" relationship with this early 20 something nurse. She is spiteful, vindictive, and downright cruel. I have been tossed around by negative life experiences many times. This preceptor is right up there in the top 3 most miserable experiences of my life. Her tone and demeanor are just rude, cold, snarky, and vindictive. I am new, and I have a lot to learn. But rather than show me how to do something, she just says do it and then if I do it wrong, she calls me out at the bedside. And not in a nice way. She spends hours on facebook and on her cellphone all the while telling me to "figure it out" when I have a question. If she quizzes me on something and I give the incorrect answer, she rolls her eyes with a huffy "no, wrong!" answer. She hauls in a backpack full of personal drama every shift. She has spent the first 2 hours crying to our unit coordinator on two separate shifts. If I follow doctor orders, she finds something else to negate my confidence. If I dare listen to heart rhythm before breathsounds, she shakes her head, says "no, stop. Do that again". If it is time to clean up poop, she is MIA for 20-30 minutes. I am one of 3 new grads, and the other two have great preceptors. Of course I end up with cruella deville.
Every ounce of confidence I had is completely gone. Every ounce of self worth has been tossed out the window. I am so afraid of her and being berated at the bedside that I am third and fourth guessing myself before every thing I do. These are such sick patients that I am so afraid that my fear of my preceptor will cause me to hurt a patient. I am so unsure of myself and scared of her that I try so hard and just end up doing something else that she disapproves of. One shift she disappeared for over an hour. I got caught up on charting. I was preparing to go give the 0100 antibiotic, it was 0110. Well within med admin time window. She spent 5 minutes ripping me down one side and back up the other on how charting is not important and that the antibiotic should have been hanging rather than me charting. THEN she was mad that the med was further delayed because she had to verbally berate me before I hung the med. The next shift I stopped charting to go do a 2200 med pass and she told me that the meds could wait until I finished charting....... jeesh. I cannot win here.
My orientation is 14 weeks. Which meant I had 10 more weeks of dealing with her. Until she shared the other night that the first 12 weeks off orientation we will still be scheduled on the same shifts as she will be my "resource nurse" for those 12 weeks. I was devastated. The only thing that kept me going was the countdown of 10 weeks. When I realized that was not the end, I almost fell apart in the nurses station. To make it worse, this preceptor is also the ring leader of the unit. She is very very careful to treat me like crap when noone else is around. And always makes sure to chart in my weekly eval about how good I am doing. She is BFF with my unit educator. As in, they do spin class every morning and happy hour every weekend. My educator thinks my preceptor is gods gift to nursing. Fabulous. I made a feeble attempt at talking with my educator about my experience and she told me it was just new grad jitters. Nope, this is way more than new grad jitters. I could seriously write a book about the shifts I have with this preceptor. It is deplorable.
So tonight, I was supposed to work. I was physically ill trying to take a shower and get ready for work. Dry heaving, headache, cold sweat, tachycardia....total fight or flight set in. I spend my entire shift waiting for 7am to leave, and when I have days off I spend them dreading having to go back to work. I have zero personal enjoyment whatsoever because the experience at my job is completely destroying my entire life.
So tonight I made a decision. I wrote my resignation letter and I quit. I have wanted to quit for 3 weeks, and I was finally at the point where my mind, body, and heart had to get on the same page and do what I had to do. I feel like a total failure, yet I feel like a 500lb brick has been taken off my back. I realize new grad positions are not easy to get. I realize that I will no longer be eligible to work at this facility, but I think I would rather flip burgers than ever entertain the thought of going back there anytime in my nursing career. I am deathly afraid that I committed career suicide by quitting this job. But at the end of the day, it was either my emotional stability and physical health or the job. Obviously I had to choose my wellbeing. I think it is horrible that the job outlook is so bad new grads would actually stay in a situation like this because of fear of finding another job. I am thankful that I have a PRN job lined up, I have noticed an influx of new grad openings in the past 2 weeks, and I have put my resume out there to hopefully gain another full time hospital job. I realize it may take a while, and I am ok with that. I had to get out.
It is a sad day for me. I regret the situation, mourn the loss of my new grad zest, and I am trying to pick up the pieces and find my self confidence again. I know that with time this too shall pass. I will look back in 5-10 years and laugh with a new grad that I am precepting about what an experience I had, and how I intend to make their experience nothing but positive. Mark one more down in the record books folks......another new nurse completely devoured and spit out by a person in power with a huge ego and zero personal skills.
Just stick with your new preceptor and stay away from the old one. Try to only speak to her if it pertains to work things. She sounds like a miserable person, this is why she can't focus on being a good preceptor.
The title doesn't even begin to say how horrible I feel. :-(
I just graduated in May with my BSN. I did very well in school, graduated with honors. I am in my later 30's and this is a second career for me. I was one of the fortunate ones to get a job prior to graduation. I went to work in a large teaching hospital in a surgical ICU. Very very sick patients. I had a capstone and an additional clinical rotation through an ICU and let me tell you, those were like out the door ready for discharge med surg units compared to the level of critical acuity at my new job. I swear I was caring for the sickest of the sick in the entire metropolitan area. Our unit was also an overflow for critical medical and cancer patients so there was no telling what kind of patient I was going to care for each night. Some nights I had a patient with platelets at 5, other nights I had blood shooting out of a fresh arm amputation, and I still have nightmares about the rapid response and code pagers going off.
To say I felt overwhelmed is an understatement. The standard nursing procedure/charting itself wasn't overwhelming.....but the level of acuity and just how unstable and sick these patients was! I took 2 patients per night, and just started my 4th week of orientation. My preceptor is a nightmare. I have been trapped in an "eat my young" relationship with this early 20 something nurse. She is spiteful, vindictive, and downright cruel. I have been tossed around by negative life experiences many times. This preceptor is right up there in the top 3 most miserable experiences of my life. Her tone and demeanor are just rude, cold, snarky, and vindictive. I am new, and I have a lot to learn. But rather than show me how to do something, she just says do it and then if I do it wrong, she calls me out at the bedside. And not in a nice way. She spends hours on facebook and on her cellphone all the while telling me to "figure it out" when I have a question. If she quizzes me on something and I give the incorrect answer, she rolls her eyes with a huffy "no, wrong!" answer. She hauls in a backpack full of personal drama every shift. She has spent the first 2 hours crying to our unit coordinator on two separate shifts. If I follow doctor orders, she finds something else to negate my confidence. If I dare listen to heart rhythm before breathsounds, she shakes her head, says "no, stop. Do that again". If it is time to clean up poop, she is MIA for 20-30 minutes. I am one of 3 new grads, and the other two have great preceptors. Of course I end up with cruella deville.
Every ounce of confidence I had is completely gone. Every ounce of self worth has been tossed out the window. I am so afraid of her and being berated at the bedside that I am third and fourth guessing myself before every thing I do. These are such sick patients that I am so afraid that my fear of my preceptor will cause me to hurt a patient. I am so unsure of myself and scared of her that I try so hard and just end up doing something else that she disapproves of. One shift she disappeared for over an hour. I got caught up on charting. I was preparing to go give the 0100 antibiotic, it was 0110. Well within med admin time window. She spent 5 minutes ripping me down one side and back up the other on how charting is not important and that the antibiotic should have been hanging rather than me charting. THEN she was mad that the med was further delayed because she had to verbally berate me before I hung the med. The next shift I stopped charting to go do a 2200 med pass and she told me that the meds could wait until I finished charting....... jeesh. I cannot win here.
My orientation is 14 weeks. Which meant I had 10 more weeks of dealing with her. Until she shared the other night that the first 12 weeks off orientation we will still be scheduled on the same shifts as she will be my "resource nurse" for those 12 weeks. I was devastated. The only thing that kept me going was the countdown of 10 weeks. When I realized that was not the end, I almost fell apart in the nurses station. To make it worse, this preceptor is also the ring leader of the unit. She is very very careful to treat me like crap when noone else is around. And always makes sure to chart in my weekly eval about how good I am doing. She is BFF with my unit educator. As in, they do spin class every morning and happy hour every weekend. My educator thinks my preceptor is gods gift to nursing. Fabulous. I made a feeble attempt at talking with my educator about my experience and she told me it was just new grad jitters. Nope, this is way more than new grad jitters. I could seriously write a book about the shifts I have with this preceptor. It is deplorable.
So tonight, I was supposed to work. I was physically ill trying to take a shower and get ready for work. Dry heaving, headache, cold sweat, tachycardia....total fight or flight set in. I spend my entire shift waiting for 7am to leave, and when I have days off I spend them dreading having to go back to work. I have zero personal enjoyment whatsoever because the experience at my job is completely destroying my entire life.
So tonight I made a decision. I wrote my resignation letter and I quit. I have wanted to quit for 3 weeks, and I was finally at the point where my mind, body, and heart had to get on the same page and do what I had to do. I feel like a total failure, yet I feel like a 500lb brick has been taken off my back. I realize new grad positions are not easy to get. I realize that I will no longer be eligible to work at this facility, but I think I would rather flip burgers than ever entertain the thought of going back there anytime in my nursing career. I am deathly afraid that I committed career suicide by quitting this job. But at the end of the day, it was either my emotional stability and physical health or the job. Obviously I had to choose my wellbeing. I think it is horrible that the job outlook is so bad new grads would actually stay in a situation like this because of fear of finding another job. I am thankful that I have a PRN job lined up, I have noticed an influx of new grad openings in the past 2 weeks, and I have put my resume out there to hopefully gain another full time hospital job. I realize it may take a while, and I am ok with that. I had to get out.
It is a sad day for me. I regret the situation, mourn the loss of my new grad zest, and I am trying to pick up the pieces and find my self confidence again. I know that with time this too shall pass. I will look back in 5-10 years and laugh with a new grad that I am precepting about what an experience I had, and how I intend to make their experience nothing but positive. Mark one more down in the record books folks......another new nurse completely devoured and spit out by a person in power with a huge ego and zero personal skills.
My heart goes out to you and all i can say is "that is a D@MN shame"! :redpinkhe It really is a travesty that nurses act like complete buttholes to new nurses bc we can't simply imagine THEY were once new too! Your preceptor should have been reprimanded! I pray that when I do get a job I will not have the same experience.
Wow, I just don't get why some preceptors are that way. I have more than one preceptor due to census and one particular young lady is difficult to work with but thank God the others are not. I was letting it get to me but I've realized she's loud, obnoxious and rude to everybody. Anyway, I'm so glad your situation is better and I'm glad you got your job back, someone needs your care and you will be able to give it. I wish you the best :)
:)
SydneyJo1
271 Posts
That is wonderful! I am so happy and relieved for you! :)