I was fired from my first nursing job after 3 weeks

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Specializes in ICU RN.

To try to make a long story short, my passion all throughout nursing school was to become an ED nurse. I had my preceptorship in the ED and actually ended up becoming good friends with my preceptor. i landed a ED job at a hospital 30 min away from my home and while I had never been to this hospital before and it was farther than many other hospitals that I had been offered jobs at I was determined to do ED. My first week was overwhelming however I felt like I was catching on to everything very well. I thought I was getting along with everyone and tried so hard to make friends because this has always been a struggle of mine. Mid second week, my preceptor pulls me aside and tells me I have had complaints that I have an attitude and am argumentative when others try to help. He did not have any specific examples and I was baffled and hurt and felt so bad that I had made this impression. I cried and apologized to him and he hugged me saying he just wanted to help and he thought I was doing great but to just work on how i speak with others and that it was just something i was going to have to improve on. he even called me after saying i dont want you to take this personally i want you to take it in, grow from it and keep moving. i walked away from the conversation thinking this was just a hiccup and that I would become more comfortable within a few more weeks and I just needed to find my footing with this group of people. I worked two more shifts after that and tried my hardest to watch how i was speaking to others. after that conversation though i suddenly was seeing myself never quite fitting in with this team. i was not nearly as excited to be in this ER or even work at this hospital. my first day back on my third week, the manager pulled me an hour into my shift and told me my communication skills were not what they were looking for, that I was not a good fit for their team and i was being terminated effective immediately. my heart sank. i am suddenly doubting my decision to go into nursing and felt horrible that a problem that was brought to my attention last week was not able to be fixed. i thought i would have more time to improve myself but i guess my problems were much bigger than i thought. i am still trying to understand exactly what i did wrong so i can improve myself, but my confidence is shattered. im confused and scared to try to go back to working at a hospital because i am afraid i will make the same mistakes. the orientation was supposed to be 12 weeks and i couldn't even get through 3 weeks. i was supposed to be given one patient in my first 2-3 weeks and was juggling 4-5 in my second week. i scribed and charted a cardiac arrest my second to last day of work perfectly and constantly thanked others when they taught me something. im just lost and disappointed in myself and wishing i could have shown them the best side of myself, but i somehow feel like i wasn't given a chance to do that or to even fix my mistakes.

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Specializes in NICU.

Although we have heard one side of the story, it sounds like you din't fit into their club. At the three week point you still have the "deer in the headlights" look and should not be expected to function as an experienced ER nurse. Maybe they had a higher expectation of you since you had a preceptorship in and ER.

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I feel for you. If you want to be an ED nurse, don't let this break your soul. Try to get on where you did your preceptorship. Sorry this happened.

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I hate to make this to be something it might not be, but as a person of color I have personally been through situations where coworkers didn't like me, complained about me, etc., for no reason other than they were racist. They would make stuff up about me and do everything they could to get me down. I hate to ask this and I hope it's not the case, but are you a person of color? Racism in the workplace is not extremely common (that i know of), but if you really have done nothing wrong it's something to consider

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Your letter to Nurse Beth shed a lot of light on why you were let go. Hopefully you will read all the advice there and use it for some serious introspection.

You will recover from this.

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Specializes in Dialysis.
On 10/7/2019 at 12:06 PM, Nurse SMS said:

Your letter to Nurse Beth shed a lot of light on why you were let go. Hopefully you will read all the advice there and use it for some serious introspection.

You will recover from this.

I thought that I had read this already...

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