Need advice: I have bad anxiety before I go to work.

[brownbook]

Sounds like your worse worries are before work, very normal when you have more idle time, once at work you are probably to busy with patient care to have time to worry. There is a polite way and crude way I dispel my worries. Polite, "Face the worst, believe the best, do your most, and leave the rest." The crude way I dispel my worries, "I hope I kill someone tonight so I lose my nursing license and never have to work as a nurse again." I know it sounds real crude but it worked, it got my worries to shut up as I drove into work. (No I never did kill anyone.)

[10ACGIRL]

I understand how you feel. I graduated in May 08 and have been working in the Neuroscience ICU in Detroit ever since. There are many nights I worry about being able to provide the necessary care it takes to care for those high acuity pt's. We are a teaching hospital so I have residents and NP's available which really helps. I try not to work more than 3 nights in a row and getting plenty of sleep on my days off is a must. Also being able to talk to my friends who are also "new" to nursing lets you sort of de-brief, which is really important. Sometimes ppl still make fun of me because I always have my 2 ton backpack with me with all of my resources, books, and a scrapbook I put together with important tid bits I collected. It's kinda like my security blanket I can look anything up that I need, it's kinda a work in progress...lol...anyway, you're not alone, there are many of us "newbies" out there. Hang in there, but if the job is seriously impacting you in a negative way you might wanna think about other options, only you know what's best for you. Right now with the nursing shortage there are tons of options out there. Good luck to you....Brigitte

I had an interview for PCT on an NICU(neuro icu) and was offered to think about if I want to work on that unit or on MICU, NICU has 50 beds with 8 pt's per tech and MICU has 8 beds with 2 pt. per tech. The hours are from 8p-6a (10 hr. shift), so can anyone help me a bit on which unit is more total care than the other or R they both the same!?