imposter syndrome

an article on this exists in the ANA publication as well. I think we all felt like imposters when we first began working. If you do an educational offering consider ways to get out of that type of thinking. Sometimes the simplest successes can turn us all around. I remember sitting down to chart, and overhearing two seasoned nurses talking about a patient situation concerning one of them. I then realized I will NEVER know it all and that I work with a lot of smart people who can be excellent resources to me. Look at the ANA site for a copy of the article. It was interesting

I have felt this was for a long time, and it was exacerbated when I completed my MSN last year. Me? Masters? Yeah, right!

It is a very real phenomenon - and I suspect it is a LOT more common than one would suspect. Good choice of a topic!

I also finished my MSN within the last year and that may be why I thought the topic would be interesting.

I remember sitting in my Adult Nursing class in my second semester of an ABSN program (after doing quite well in my first semester) thinking EVERY DAY: "This is the day they find out I'm full of crap, that I'm an imposter, that I know absolutely nothing about what I am doing, that I have no business here or pursuing any type of health care degree and I need to go home and plant flowers or something else far, far away from patients..."

I'm dead serious. It kept me up at night - I wasn't worried about grades or courses or papers or any of that stuff. I was afraid they'd find out I was full of it.

(I wasn't, of course, but it certainly felt like it!)

So, yeah, I dealt with it. :) Scared me to death for a whole semester. And I too think it's very common.