I just started on a step-down cardiac unit two days ago and I hate it already. My preceptor is the clinical coordinator for the unit and the boss that we have manages 2 cardiac floors (since she is just taking over because the boss from the floor that I am on quit, along with another boss this same year).
I did my GN position at this same hospital months ago on the other cardiac unit that my boss manages but took time off for nclex and saw no openings on that unit when I came back. I am on this step-down cardiac unit now and it is hell!
Although I have experience computer charting from both my GN and SNA position with this hospital system for two years, my preceptor tells me how to arrow down the way she wants to on the computer, get my meds and bag them the way she wants, and etc then gives me attitude if I vary. She gives me really no room to breathe either. I just feel like I have made a bad choice by going to this unit because the patients acuity levels are high and one may get 8 or more depending on the mod that you are in. One may be in one mod with three and another with eight..this is crazy.
I never felt this overwhelmed even during my 6 week orientation as a grad nurses this summer. Before hire, my boss told me that I was to get a 4-week orientation to piggyback off the GN experience from this August. Yesterday I found out that it will only be two weeks of floor work since the other two weeks will be spent on echo classes.
With this preceptor she has a bad effect on me but I am scared to change her because ultimately she is usually the charge nurse too and may screw me with assignments. I see her talking about me to other co-workers as well and she often talks to me in a very condescending way. I just feel she does not let me develop my own style and never really tells me if I am doing things rights or wrong..very little feedback. My first day on the floor she just walked in and told me "You were not supposed to start unitil January, see people are saying one thing then another thing." She also told the case manager that I have to do my orientation on the floor and hold off on my 2-week echo classes because that messes up her schedule! The case manager and her seem to be pissed at me because they did not know when to schedule me because I was supposedly thought to be starting in January. My preceptor often tells me that she is playing boss too. She often asks me "can you handle these 12-hour shifts?" She even ignores me when she is talking about her personal business to other co-workers or if she is talking on the phone to her kids.
