Is it too soon to panic? (Hate my new job)

I transferred from a surgical floor (after 4 years)to a neuro ICU. Two different hospitals but the same health system. I have oriented in the neuro ICU for 6 weeks and I think I have 2 weeks left. I really dislike a lot of things about my new job. 

In no particular order..

 I hate the nursing care on this unit. It doesn’t feel anything like what I expected an ICU to feel like. In 6 weeks there have been only two vented patients, on different drips, who were pretty busy/complex like what I pictured when I envisioned ICU patients. The vast majority are all fairly simple. Neuro assessments done every hour. BP and sodium goals. A LOT of electrolyte replacement and then drawing labs, then more electrolytes, then more labs... We recover patients post cerebral angios, that’s just even more frequent vs and neuro assessments. While I do feel busy, I feel bored  because it feels like the same few tasks on repeat all day every day. So many neuro assessments!

Pretty much every patient goes to CT every day for serial head CTs. We do our own transports by ourselves pushing the patient in the bed down to ct and back. It is so annoying. 

There is very little experienced staff. I have been trained by a nurse with 1 year experience. She is the most senior night shift nurse. Several nights I found I have been a nurse longer than all 5 nurses working, collectively!! And I haven’t been a nurse that long. 

While I have a lot to learn in the ICU realm, I know basic nursing care. These nurses don’t seem phased by basic things I have always been diligent about. ie: capping IV tubing when not in use, scanning medications before giving them, not using the same straight cath a second time if you miss your destination, etc etc. I try to put this in perspective if this is just me not thinking like an ICU nurse so these things are not their priority, but quite honestly we had plenty of time to care and do these things right, it seems the culture is such that the basic nursing care is sloppy… 

No experienced staff also means a lot of staff left in a short amount of time. That’s a bit of a red flag in itself. I asked the staff, they claim it was just bad timing. Some nurses finished school, some left to travel, some went PRN to stay home with kids, etc. 

The high amount of new nurses means the few more experienced nurses are so sick of orienting that I don’t feel like I’m learning as much as I could had they not been so burnt out.. it’s a super unwelcoming feeling every shift.

I swear maybe one other nurse I met is in my stage of life. The other newer nurses are all pretty young. They are still in the bar after work/party every weekend stage. My old floor I had a lot more in common with my coworkers, a lot of good friendships. I miss that. 

No one is designated to watch the tele monitor. On my old floor there was a monitor tech who sat at the desk and would call with any alarms, then I would be able to log in and be the one to decipher if that alarm was a true concern or not. On this floor it is the nurses who watch the monitor because the floor is small. There is no free charge though so it concerns me everyone could be in a room and miss an alarm. Even though I am orienting I saw a situation where the nurse was not alerted to a patient with several vtach alarms because the nurse who saw it determined it was not true vtach. (It was) That situation had me livid just thinking about the risk of having telemetry alarms acknowledged on MY patients but not being informed about it. 

I was hired for day/night but told in the interview it would be just a few nights in a schedule period. I was actually assigned to 50% nights on my schedule I just received. I questioned that and was simply told it’s not set in stone and it is what it is. I’m super dissatisfied with that and the impact it’s has on me and our family routines.

In two months I have not seen my manager or assistant manager in person. I have received info twice by email, and it’s when I emailed first with questions. Neither have checked in on orientation asked how things are going, nothing. We have had no sit down check ins, which was standard the other places I have worked. 

So basically I’m getting ready to start a ton of education. Online modules, in person classes, etc. This is all completed on top of my scheduled 36 hours. I knew about the education and initially I didn’t mind doing it, I actually enjoy learning. I’m hesitant now though to throw so much of my time into a job I hate already. Typically you need to stay 1 year before transfer but I think right now I could transfer back to my old unit as an exception, but if I let them invest more time and money in me I will potentially be stuck for the full year. 

Would it be silly to try to jump ship so soon? I am leaning towards reaching out to my old manager Monday but I don’t want to regret it… I am torn between knowing that if having this one year of ICU experience it can benefit me and my future endeavors and not wanting to spend the year tired and miserable on an unsafe unit.

Has you every felt the writing was on the walls and left a job before even getting off orientation?