My Experience and Thoughts as a New Nurse

[AlmostThere19, BSN, RN]

I've had about 3 weeks of orientation on my new unit so far. I'm a new graduate fresh out of school, and I've never worked in healthcare even as a tech until I started this job. Here are some of my thoughts. First, there are definitely a few times throughout a shift where I have to stop and ask questions of my preceptor. I feel like this is normal due to my inexperience. However, I sometimes feel like my preceptor gets annoyed by me asking questions. Her response sometimes comes off like the answer to my question should be obvious and like I should have known it already. I would rather ask a stupid question than harm a patient because I don't know what I'm doing. Today on day 8, I took 4 patients for the first time. I'm wondering if it's typical to progress that fast, and I feel like I need to stay at 4 patients for a while (at least another week) until my time management starts to get better. I also feel like I'm getting a ton of independence in my patient care. For the first few days, my preceptor usually always came in the room with me to watch me do things, but now she backs off and only comes in with me if I tell her I need help. I feel like maybe that's a good thing because it means I'm doing a good job and she trusts me. I haven't really gotten much feedback from her because our shifts have been crazy busy and there hasn't honestly been much time to. I guess I'm just worried about whether or not I'm really doing well since I haven't gotten much feedback lately. I know it's something I need to ask my preceptor about during my next shift.