I think I will always feel incompetent

[Valinerya]

I just don't think I will EVER be a good nurse. I've been working on the acute care ward of my local hospital as an RPN for 5 months now, right out of nursing school. Every day I go home feeling like I have absolutely no clue how to be a nurse. I feel stupider at the end of the day than I do at the beginning. Usually I cry, then start becoming nauseated at the thought of working again the next day.

Take today, for example. I had to set an IV in a lady. I nailed the vein, no problem. I tried to withdraw the needle... and the catheter came out with it. That was the only decent vein she had left, and I wrecked it. I have done IVs before, no way should I have screwed that up.

And my other patient who is pre-op for a lap-coli tomorrow. One of the other RPNs mentioned something about a pre-op checklist I had to do... be darned if I knew where it was, or how to do it, and I got overwhelmed trying to start another IV in another person with leather for skin (which I missed totally the first time and never got the chance for a second time)... so I left in report for the night shift to do the checklist and the leathery-guy's IV start. I SHOULD have been able to handle it!

There's so many other things that happened just today that leave me feeling like I made a HUGE mistake going into nursing. I ask four million questions every shift. I do the same with my other job as a community nurse, which I also got fresh out of school.

My partner keeps telling me to give it a year. That it will take me a full year to feel like I know what I am doing. I've had 5 MONTHS. Shouldn't I be a LOT better than this? I am 38 years old, and feel like an 8 year old on the job. Please, someone, PROMISE me it gets better.

[Ernurse2012]

You should read Patrica Brenner's theory on Novice to Expert. It is a. Great theory. She basically says that we move through various stages in our career, starting as a novice, but moving slowly to Expert. But it takes time, a lot to time. 5 months is nothing

She also discusses how if an Expert nurse is taken out of her normal setting, she can revert back to a Novice. For example, I am an Expert in Geriatrics, butmifmyoumbut me on a Mother/Baby unit, I would revert back to Novice.

So give your self time. Things wil get better. As for your IV mistake, I've done the exact same thing, and I've been nursing for 22 years!

I need to read this book. I was a new grad spent 8mths in tele got very good at and then decided to move to the Ed. I'm lost it's like starting all over again.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

yes, it is. and then what? (hint: you keep putting one foot in front of the other and one day you notice you are walking without thinking about your feet.)

some of you have heard me tell this story before. i was nearly four years out of school and had been staff in this fabulous icu for three, and i was actually pretty good for that. one day i was in the break room with sarah, a nurse of more than a decade's experience in the unit, one who could take every kind of patient that rolled up the hall, who was never flustered, always expert, always willing to teach and explain. i asked her when i would stop feeling scared when i sat in report. she smiled and said that every day before report started she felt a pang of anxiety, but that it passed when she started working. she said that when that little stab of fear went away she would have to go somewhere else, because it's what keeps us awake and sharp. i never, ever forgot that (and here i am, telling that story again, smumble-mumble years later), and i am happy to pass it along to you.

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

GrnTea is right.

A little anxiety before tackling any task is good. It keeps us sharp and enables us to focus on what we are facing.

Stress is necessary and learning how to use stress positively is something we all have to learn to do. It's when we allow (for whatever reason) the stress to overwhelm us that it in turn, become an obstacle.

Hang in there, Valinerya. We've all been there. :)