New Grads Today v. New Grads From Years Ago

[sj73201]

I am currently a Junior nursing student (I will graduating next year). I read posts in the New Grad section of this website & always come across people saying how difficult nursing is when you start out. I read their frustrations and I get worried because almost everyone states how they have panic attacks, dread going in to work, and feel like they have no support from the other employees on the floor.

I wanted to pose a question for new grads and the more experienced nurses out there. My professors bring up in class about how the 'patient' has changed over the years, and in class today, one prof. made a good point that "Only the sickest of the sick are in the hospital, and everyone else is at home". People today are experiencing more chronic diseases at a younger age.

Do you more experienced nurses (nurse for 10, 20, maybe 30 years) feel like you've struggled as a new graduate? Do you feel as though the conditions that patients suffer with have increased with difficulty over the years? And finally, if you didn't particularly 'struggle' working as a new grad, do you think that the increasing complexity of patient issues are overwhelming new grads today?

New grads, what are the factors at work that make you feel as though you are sinking, so to speak? What can you do to improve upon those problems, if they are under your control?

Is there any particular area (oncology, med-surg, ED, ICU, etc) that you feel specifically challenging and difficult?

Just curious. I would like to have an idea on the thoughts of seasoned nurses and new grads. Thank you in advance.:redbeathe

[twinkletoes53]

Do you think that part of the problem is the fact that people sue so easily today compared to years ago? I am now newly retired due to a disability, but I remember that when I worked in the NICU, student nurses only "shadowed" the staff nurse, without doing any skills; barely even changing a diaper, and certainly not giving medications.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

I graduated from a Community College nursing program in 2008, and I hated how little we did in clinical. Mine were 6 hours a day, 2 days a week, with 1 or 2 patients. We gave meds once or twice a rotation, with the instructor present.

My med-surg rotaton was at a rehab hospital, and it was a joke. We would show up at 7AM, get report, get our patients washed, dressed, and fed, and they would go off to rehab, which left the students looking for something to do until 11:30. I envied my classmates at other locations, who were observing surgery.

I tried to get more experience by becoming a CNA, but I had no idea how to challenge the CNA exam. No one (not even my advisor) gave me any clue. The only option appeared to be my school's program ($1500 and an additional year of classes, when I was already working full-time in a call center) or a $700 Red Cross course. I applied for summer programs and got nowhere. My school didn't require a practicum, so I got no help from them. Volunteering at an ER got me nowhere.

We learned skills in the lab, but we didn't use some of them until last semester, when a student could be raked over the coals for not remembering skills that hadn't been used in over a year. I graduated feeling like a CNA that could give meds. I never inserted a catheter or used an IV pump.

My instructors who came from diploma-based programs said they were in clinical 5 days a week. Learning skills doesn't work if you never get a chance to practice what you've learned. If I'd been able to find a hospital-based diploma program, I would've jumped at it.

[OlivRN]

I'm a new grad, with almost one year experience. I agree with other posters, the patients are much more ill than they use to be! I work in LA, so it's nice to have a safe patient to nurse ratio and I work on a Cardiac DOU. Honestly, I get out 10 minutes later than the other nurses just because I prefer to check all my charting and make sure all my i's are dotted and t's are crossed. I don't know what will happen after I leave. And ALWAYS chart a note at the end of my day. I work daylight so it's alot at once. By Noon, I start to make a list if you will, for each patient room and things coming up/have to be charted and I do the same thing at 5pm. I find out it helps a lot to keep things straight. I think what depends on the new grad's sucess, is the support within the unit. I always make sure I help out my charge nurses and senior nurses. -Always- Then when I need help, they are there for me and have no problem answering questions and I just like to help out everyone. And I always try, and I get to know the doctors and they actually know me by name instead of "that new nurse" so I get my call backs and if I have a question instead of getting yelled at, they actually explain it to me. It's awesome. It's all about communication and willingness and even when it looks bleak or going down south during shift, once you have your WORST POSSIBLE http://img.an-file.info/smilies/yeah.gifSHIFT EVER, then, the days that look bad, don't seem as bad! :)

[Brea LPN]

When I was brand new, I had alot of anxiety about not feeling like I knew what to do in certain situation, such as a fall or a c/o chest pain.

[Aeterna, BSN, RN]

I'm nearly a year out of school and working on a medical/oncology floor. It's overwhelming but here in Ontario, we have something called the "New Graduate Guarantee" - the government funds new grads who apply to the program to get a job within the province and a 3-6 month preceptorship. I would say it helped, although my experience with the program was rather different than most (we weren't preceptored for the entire time, even though we were supposed to...)

However, we were "extra staff", which meant extra hands on the floor, meaning the nurses had just a little more time to help us out if we came across something challenging or unfamiliar to us. The label of "New Grad" under that initiative also gave us an "excuse" to ask all sorts of questions, LOL.

It also helped that our nurse educator was very easy-going and laid-back. If you asked for her help with something, she'd leap up and say, "Let's go do it!" She never ever questioned why we didn't know it already, why didn't we learn it in school, etc.

Still, I had days where I felt totally overwhelmed and broke down into tears once. The nurse educator - who has MANY years of nursing experience and is very knowledgeable in lots and lots of things - told me her own new grad horror stories, about how she struggled at first but learned from those experiences. My manager, who used to work as a nurse, also told me that she struggled at first, too, and that everyone struggles when they first step into the real world of nursing.

So all that made me feel a bit better and that I wasn't the only one!

[elkpark]

I graduated ~25 years ago from a hospita-based diploma school. My experience/observation in teaching in ADN and BSN programs in recent years is that I (and my classmates) knew sooooo much more about nursing, and was soooo much better prepared to start practicing as an RN when I graduated than new graduates (of either ADN or BSN programs) are today.

Sure, I was somewhat anxious and slow when I first started working, there was an obvious, definite "transition" to get through, and there was still more that I needed to learn (just as there still is today, >25 years later :)) -- but it was nothing like what graduates today talk about ... I think that another difference was that graduates of my program (and programs like mine) had a v. clear, realistic idea of what day-to-day, "real life" nursing practice was when we graduated and started working, which seems to be not at all the case with most new graduates these days.

[RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN]

I love speaking to lder nurses and from what has been shared with me, aside fromthe wonderful post above, is that people in general have changd as well. The patient became the customer. A lot less humbleness is going around. A sense of entitlement from both sides increased. More responsibilities given to the nurse, quadruple the redundant paperwork/charting. Nursing teaching quality has dimished and replaced with jibberish. We have become a very litigous society, etc etc

I graduated in 2007, so a new nurse my self. I feel my nursing program only taught me the basics and outline of nursing. The real meat and potatoes I learned on the floor through hands on. Learning never ends and thats what keeps it interesting for me as I get bored easily in other types of work.

Nursing is very stressful and like every other job out there, not every student or new grad has what it takes. Some do better in other types of work. You need to have many qualities to make it. You need to learnto pick up speed, make life saving decisions fast, be efficient without sacrificing quality, learn to like what you do, be humble and work well with all kinds of personalities, be assertive while being respectful, be ambitious, adapt fast to ever changing environments, work as a team not individually, be a mentor to newer nurses, learn to walk away from situations and come back to face them at a more appropriate time and I will repeat.......be a person pleasant to work with, have as coworker, pt and boss. Be VERY humble and know that is perhaps the best quality to possess.

[RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN]

Excuse my typos. Im typing from my phone.