I'm becoming Robotic in my Nursing

[alexamasan]

I am a new grad and am very fortunate for my job. I'm in a very good orientation program with many supportive preceptors and an overall very healthy work environment. I work on a surgical floor and am currently on my 5th week (out of 7) of orientation. I am relieved that my time management is getting slightly better week by week and I'm beginning to feel a little confident that I can handle the full patient load once I'm finished with orientation.

One thing I'm noticing about myself is that I am starting to simply go through the motions of performing nursing tasks and not really thinking about the bigger picture. I feel like I'm forgetting much of what I learned in nursing school about disease processes and that all I do all day is assess patients, give meds, and chart. I find that I'm not really picking up on things that should be, for example, I fear that if something is going wrong with my patient, I won't catch it and blissfully go on with performing my nursing tasks.

Any advice on how to improve?

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

You haven't forgotten what you learned. You are transitioning from school to the workplace. You are learning the routine and focusing on tasks (as needed at this stage). Since you are still in the novice stage, by definition you should be task-oriented.

Later on you will begin to see the big picture, and recognize patterns, some of them subtle. (Later on meaning in a year).

Also, you are being way too hard on yourself. I hope you'll believe me when I say you are doing well. Oh, and congrats on becoming an RN and landing a good job!!

[pasti.kurnia]

Hi...Congrats for your new career , well surgical floor for me always challenging many things we can learn and explore,while u do routine just try to challenge urself everyday with something new and corius about everything,coz when we do routine our brain like stagnant and bored,if 2 years still like this better u change place maybe in ER dept or another place that makes u comfortable