You ever get into something and think,"Man, I'm gonna do great! I'm gonna leave my mark on the world!"? Then after you've done it for a while you start to realize,"I'm not good at this...". Simple things. Things other nurses(some with little more experience than I) just breeze through. I come up looking like the town drunk or idiot.
Charting. I can sit and chart in what I believe is a concise and precise manner. Than later it turns up I left out an important detail. IV sticks. I have to start a lot of IVs but, I seem to be digressing in my abilities. Doctors' orders. How do I so often miss something that's written right there on the page?(OK, "scrawled" would be a better descriptive). Other routine tasks that I should know almost by heart by now I still struggle with.
Am I really just an old dog who can't learn a new trick? Those old sayings are more often than not based to some extent in reality. Maybe my synapses are so hard wired by a lifetime of doing nonmedical tasks that they just can't turn the corner to what I have to do now.
Every day it seems I do my best to get my job accomplished well and complete. But, like the dog that really wants to do well, no matter how hard I try I just keep leaving doo all over the carpet. I'm not looking for sympathy nor is this a self absorbed rant against the hospital or other nurses. It is a personal reflection that maybe this is not my calling. Not everyone can do everything and it may be that nursing is just something I am not good at.
If I don't get a lot better pretty quick I believe I'm gonna become another statistic of those who left the nursing business before a year is done. Either by my choice or those who sign the checks.
And yes, management is aware of my predicament and is also looking to find an answer.
They say it's lonely at the top. Well, down here at the bottom it's no picnic either.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Addendum: What are your thoughts about the ability to learn later in life and it's associated learning curve. Honest answers, no platitudes, please.
Some of it probably does depend on how later in life the learning takes place. In my own experience, I've found that I learn about as fast as I did when I was young, but I have more trouble retaining new information now. I have to use different cues and tricks to remember things, and frankly, small details often escape me, never to be heard from again.
Once I can talk my brain into absorbing information, though, I find that it stays with me better than it did when I was younger and more distractible. I may not be able to remember what pills I took five minutes ago, but I can tell you what my 85 assisted living residents are there for, who's on Coumadin or insulin, and how they like their eggs. IOW: the important information sticks, while the trivial sort of filters out. And I have NO issues with prioritization---in fact, I'm far more efficient now than I ever was in my 30s and 40s, when I had more energy.
So take heart, there's a few things that are lost as we age but SO much more that is gained. You're still a brand-new nurse, so please give yourself a break and don't expect everything to happen for you all at once. It took me a good 10 years to become comfortable with being an RN.....don't think you have to have it all together this early in your career. :)
Addendum: What are your thoughts about the ability to learn later in life and it's associated learning curve. Honest answers, no platitudes, please.
My head used to be filled with random bits of information that I could recall at will. I enjoyed collecting these bits of nonsense. Now, I don't find it as important. Any new information must be pertinent and, more importantly, it must make sense to me. I have to spend time organizing this new information in a logical way to get it to stick. If I'm told in report that someone is on a blood sugar check because two days ago they were a tube feed and now they are not--without a DM co-morbidity, mind you--I must write it down, otherwise it doesn't make sense to me because it's no longer logical. (And, I mention it to the oncoming AM nurse to see if she can get it d/c'd.)
First year nursing or my thirteenth year of life, which would I be willing to go through again?...it's a tossup.
Yes it was bad, but you get stronger and smarter, and the year passes. If you look around you'll see someone on the unit that you KNOW is stupider and lazier than you are, and they got through it. Gonna let them beat you? If you go home at night and no one is dead, and you have the determination to get up in the morning and walk in there again, you are still in the game.
I entered nursing school at 17, and kept thinking that if I kept that steep learning curve up through my first few years of nursing, maybe no one would remember what a klutz I was when I started. I'm 42 now, and the days I feel totally lost are much rarer. If a newbie is still working to get better, I'm ready to answer questions, but I still have to put my patients first. Can you find a mentor who works with you?
VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN
22 Articles; 9,996 Posts
Some of it probably does depend on how later in life the learning takes place. In my own experience, I've found that I learn about as fast as I did when I was young, but I have more trouble retaining new information now. I have to use different cues and tricks to remember things, and frankly, small details often escape me, never to be heard from again.
Once I can talk my brain into absorbing information, though, I find that it stays with me better than it did when I was younger and more distractible. I may not be able to remember what pills I took five minutes ago, but I can tell you what my 85 assisted living residents are there for, who's on Coumadin or insulin, and how they like their eggs. IOW: the important information sticks, while the trivial sort of filters out. And I have NO issues with prioritization---in fact, I'm far more efficient now than I ever was in my 30s and 40s, when I had more energy.
So take heart, there's a few things that are lost as we age but SO much more that is gained. You're still a brand-new nurse, so please give yourself a break and don't expect everything to happen for you all at once. It took me a good 10 years to become comfortable with being an RN.....don't think you have to have it all together this early in your career. :)