Is this job for me?!

[smash222]

Forgive me as this might be long but I really need to hear from other nurses.. So I've been at my job for 7 weeks now; it's my first job since graduation. I still have another 5-6 weeks of orientation, but I'm so overwhelmed and making stupid mistakes. I almost feel like I did better in the first 4 weeks of orientation and I'm progressively getting worse. The last week or two I've had a patient load of 5 (the max is 6) and the other day just really made me question my capabilities and love for nursing. My preceptor is great, but there are somethings that bother me and there's a bit of miscommunication because of the language barrier. Anyway, I'll give an example.. The other day I had 5 patients, one was being discharged soon so I sat down to finish her charting. I get a call from someone so while I'm on the phone and charting my preceptor tells me to go through the discharge and do the papers for her. I pointed at the screen and showed her there was no actual discharge order yet, but she just wanted me to do the papers anyway. I got off the phone after a minute and she walked away. Finished her DC papers and we have them to the pt and told her to call us when she had her ride and we would have someone take her down. We went to the break room to eat, come back and pt is gone. No official DC ordered were ever placed. Of course it was my fault, cause I should have put the orders in since the dr told me she was good to go, but I didn't know if I could put the order in myself. Then we came back from lunch and saw two of my patients had overdue meds. I forgot to do the admission charting for my new admit, I forgot to check on the lab results that were drawn earlier for another pt, I forgot to fill out a form for my new admit, etc. I don't spend tons of time with my pts, but she tells me I need to not stay in the room too long and learn to leave quicker when they're talking and asking questions. At this point I'm dreading going back to work and just feel like this job isn't for me. I love it most days, but I feel so incompetent and like I'll never be able to handle it when I'm on my own. I guess I just need advice or someone to tell me this is normal, or that I do suck and look for another job.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Based on your post, it would appear that you may be having some difficulty keeping track of all the 'must do' tasks for your patients. This is not really surprising when you stop to think about the sheer number of things that have to be done... routinely scheduled as well as those that pop up with new orders or changing patient conditions. Even the most expert nurse can't keep track of everything without some help.

You're beating yourself up for "forgetting" things. That's normal. But the best approach is to learn from your mistakes & take some concrete steps to fix those problems. If you're not already using one, you may consider using a "brain sheet" paper organizer to organize your day. Using one of these to jot down all of those tasks will really help. It will also help a lot when you're giving report or summarizing issues for one of your docs. If you just search on "shift organizer" or "brain sheet" here on AN, you'll come up with a lot of really great resources from expert nurses.

[NurseMichellee]

I consider these to be great learning examples!! Best time to do it is during orientation. You are in a new environment, feeling things out and trying to create your own flow so give it some time to work through the crazy flows as you create your own.

I would highly recommend keeping a small pocket notebook in your pocket and writing down lists of things to do and keeping track that way.

Soounds like youre a great nurse learning the ropes and could just use a little time management/organization of tasks.

good luck, dont give up! Jump in!