Nervous about switching to new hospital. Any tips?

[Jaellys]

I’m moving and so I applied for a large hospital a couple hours away and got the job.

its a meg surg unit but I’ve been told it will be more fast paced than my current med surg unit, since the hospital is larger and takes a bit more higher acuity patients.

im getting two weeks of orientation with a preceptor, sharing the patient load. Thankfully It will be the same Charting system that I use now.

any tips? This is my first job switch. I’ve heard the unit is very supportive of new people but I’m still nervous as it’s gonna be busier. It will still be night shift. I’m worried about not being able to find things or know which doc to call, or encounter something that I haven’t done before and looking stupid since I have experience already and “should know this”. I have 3 years med surg experience.

[Wuzzie]

It’s hard going from the familiar to the unknown but did you know where to find stuff or which docs to call when you started your first job? No? I bet you figured it out though and you will at your new job too. People aren’t going to expect you to hit the door running. The one thing that I would advise is to never let the words “that’s not how we did it at my other job” pass your lips. Better to say something along the lines of “This is a new way of doing this for me. Would you mind showing me how?” Trust me on this.

[RNperdiem, RN]

Sometimes big hospitals have their benefits. At my big hospital, there is an IV team who can start your difficult IVs for you.

The pharmacy is open 24 hrs a day; at my community hospital, the pharmacist went home at 10pm.

Contacting doctors was a challenge at the smaller community hospital. Where I work now, I just poke my head into the resident work room and tell the doctors to come see the patient.

When a nurse calls in sick here, working short is almost never an issue because big hospital has a staffing flex team with hundreds ( I am not exaggerating about the hundreds either) of nurses who can be sent to staff.

[brownbook]

Banish the thought "I should know this" from your brain. So many nurses live with this, from new grads to seasoned nurses. Doctors do it also! Think of the pressure they feel graduation from 12 or so years of schooling, they are supposed to know it all.

If I had a nickle for every time I asked a co-worker, whom I knew was really bright, had worked the area a long time, etc., a question about something I didn't understand, and felt dumb to admit, and they'd say "I don't know that either", I'd be rich...even with just a nickle!

Of course then you'd call the pharmacist, or ask the doctor, etc., or if it wasn't an urgent issue come to Allnurses and ask here.