Need advice

[mom63]

I am a newer nurse, and have been working in home health since July 2014. I do a lot of PICC line care, teaching, general medication management, etc as would be expected for my position. My patients like me, and I often get requests to come back and visit them. On occasion, however, I will get a comment that a patient has made to another professional, such as the social worker or another RN that I do not seem to know what I am doing and do not appear to be confident. Although I did very well academically, confidence was an issue at the bedside for me in nursing school, and I am continuing to work hard to overcome it. I DO know what I am doing, and provide very thorough teaching and assessments. I really have no idea what I can do to appear to be more confident in my execution of the care I provide. One thing I have learned to do are talk less (overly wordy teaching is not a good thing), to have supplies ready to go so I dont fumble around, not to react if I cannot get blood if someone is a hard stick, etc.

It is so incredibly frustrating to do very detailed and thorough teaching to the patient and their families, only to be told that they did not feel I knew what I was doing, when I literally taught everything I needed to, required the patient or caregiver to do a return demonstration while providing feedback. Even doing PICC line dressing changes, a few felt I didn't know what I was doing. My boss has watched me perform these, and she feels comfortable with my doing them and I do it well.

Clearly it must be something about my demeanor and I have NO clue what it could be.

Any advice?

Thanks

[SierraBravo]

Do a mock teaching in front of a trusted colleague or friend and get their feedback. Sometimes it is the non-verbal queues that people pick up on. Confidence often comes with experience.