okay soooo i got through my first flex of rn school just started my first flex (med surge 1)
soooo excited! sooo different from the first flex that was in a nursing home, not very exciting!
we did out orientation and i was just full of excitement i couldn't stop smiling!!!
we start giving medications next week!!
my question is!!! please i need feedback....
i have never been around alot of blood and open tissue... ( i saw an unstageable pressure ulcer that is about it...and i took it pretty well except the smell was the most horrible thing i have ever smelled in my life) but im just wondering....does getting scared/nervous happen to a lot of your nurse's???? like when you first started your rotations in the hospital were you scared how you would react in certain situations???
i'm so never i will pass out (not throw up, just pass out)
i dont know why i am soooo worried about it...
im just really really afraid i will.... is there anything anyone can tell me that might make this whole shift into the med surge/or better!!! ahhh!!! i just wanna do great!
You need to hear my story. I was a very young student nurse, only 18, so I had no life experience. I was very shy and anxious and even my parents couldn't believe I was majoring in nursing. Everybody thought I just wasn't the type. I was very nervous in clinicals, even though I studied all the time. I was just so scared of hurting somebody. My very first shot went awry when the patient jumped and I dropped the needle. Then she started screaming about how incompetent I was and demanded that I leave her room immediately AND she was going to sue me. Needless to say, my confidence was shattered. A few days later, my very kind instructor insisted that I try again. I was scared witless and he told me something very profound: Sometimes you have to hurt people to make them well. My patient was about 80 and recovering from a hip replacement. My instructor told me that "he probably can't even feel it" and to go ahead and give the shot. I believed him(what did I know?), plunged the 2" needed deep into his hip...an promptly passed out. I woke up in the other semi-private bed. But I gave that damn shot!
I also passed out in surgery. It was a knee replacement and when the surgeon got in there with the saw I went down like a rock--and contaminated the instrument table,the assistant, the surgeon and the surgical field. They let me lay there, too. And when I came to, they had my instructor remove me from surgery and banned me from the OR.
I graduated 2nd in my class, btw. I've been a nurse for 32+ years and I've only fainted one other time. Working in the NICU with a particularly awful case. I ended up on the floor, but I was kinda proud that I didn't fall on the baby.
I remember once when I was working at a med/surg unit I was starting an IV in a pt with the student observing me. I got the cath in but fumbled a little securing it on the "hub" so some blood dripped out but nothing too bad. The student I was with got a queezy look on his face and proceeded to walk out the door and passed out cold on the hallway floor. After he woke up he was fine and we all had a good laugh about it. He didn't show up the next day and I found out he dropped out of the program all together.
I remember once when I was working at a med/surg unit I was starting an IV in a pt with the student observing me. I got the cath in but fumbled a little securing it on the "hub" so some blood dripped out but nothing too bad. The student I was with got a queezy look on his face and proceeded to walk out the door and passed out cold on the hallway floor. After he woke up he was fine and we all had a good laugh about it. He didn't show up the next day and I found out he dropped out of the program all together.
I think everyone reacts differently to different things. Some people can't handle mucous. I can suction all day long. Some people get sick with poop or vomit, not me, can clean it up and go eat dinner (after washing my hands, ofcourse, lol) Others can't stand decubs and wounds, I enjoy trying to be creative in dressing those to bring comfort. But what I cannot stand, what will put me on the floor quicker than ANYTHING is to see someone CUT into another person's body. Yep, surgery will never be my thing, I can't take it. Watched surgery one time in college and was invited to not come back, lol. My OB teacher had to pull me out of the delivary room after an episiotomy. Blah, you can have it.
okay! update everyone! i did wound care for the very first time on a pt with a stomp leg due to some sort of flesh eating bacteria! it was really bad wound and all of the nursing on staff were talking about how bad it was! when i walked in to do the change with the nurse i was so nervous and my palms were sweating horribly! needless to say i did great!! i was not grossed out at all... i didn’t squirm or throw up or pass out! that was a huge accomplishment for me! yay me! or next week!
I think once your actually working with the pt and caring for them that is what makes the diffrence! It was like nothing because I had to be strong and professional for him!! :)
I was a student nurse working as a cna and passed out assisting a nurse put in a foley(my first time) the curtains were pulled all around the bed, so it was a combo of things. I've also felt faint once helping with a real bad decub. I think if I had been doing not assisting it wouldn't have happened.
I've been a nurse for over 18 years so it didn't stop me from doing what I wanted to do.
I passed out during my OR rotation. They were de-clotting a fistula-it was a much longer procedure than planned and those loooong clots..........
I started walking out( felt lightheaded) and the circulating nurse followed me and I passed out on a gurney in the hallway-embarrassing!
I knew OR wasn't for me but interestingly I worked in ER and a Trauma ICU-I need action with my gore!!
Eat breakfast, snacks, lunch, more snacks... the worst mistake students make is thinking "If I eat, I will surely throw it back up..." Instead, you end up passed out cold on the floor from low blood sugar.
Never lock your knees! As someone else said, shift your weight. If you start getting that weak, jello-legged feeling... get out of the room/area and sit. Drop to the floor against the wall and sit if you have to. Find something and fan yourself cool. Go find some grape juice or a piece of hard candy.
If you're in the OR, don't get too close to the sterile field. Trust me, as someone who was a former scrub tech, it is NOT fun to have a student pass out on your sterile field! You will do much better to be honest and excuse yourself from the room before you contaminate everything and make a lot of people very unhappy.
If you notice you're starting to get grossed out, immediately look away and change your thoughts as you remove yourself from the area. You may spare yourself some embarrassment later.
Always have an escape plan. Even if you're not normally claustrophobic by nature, you stick yourself in an uncomfortable, gross situation and you may find yourself feeling trapped, and panicky. Have a way to escape and excuse yourself gracefully.
It's not always the obvious gross stuff that will get you. I nearly passed out during my NICU rotation from watching an umbilical line being pulled. It wasn't bloody, it wasn't painful for the baby but it sure made the color drain from my face!!! Everyone has their limits. Know yours.
Lastly, NEVER make yourself feel the pain of the other person. IF you try and empathize to this point, you're going to feel the effects. If you're in there changing that dressing or cleaning out that wound and you're attempting to transfer their pain and discomfort upon yourself, you WILL gross yourself out. Don't do it!
Almost passed out watching the debriding of a stage IV pressure ulcer - they could fit their entire hand up to the wrist in it! Had to excuse myself from that one... Almost threw up while suctioning a throat cancer patient (he hacked phlegm 10 feet through the air - who wouldn't feel ill?). I don't work in either of those areas :-)
When I was in A & P II we had to type our own blood. When it came to using the lancets, at least three people per class fainted! It was incredible.
mustlovepoodles, RN
1,041 Posts
I also passed out in surgery. It was a knee replacement and when the surgeon got in there with the saw I went down like a rock--and contaminated the instrument table,the assistant, the surgeon and the surgical field.
They let me lay there, too. And when I came to, they had my instructor remove me from surgery and banned me from the OR.
I graduated 2nd in my class, btw. I've been a nurse for 32+ years and I've only fainted one other time. Working in the NICU with a particularly awful case. I ended up on the floor, but I was kinda proud that I didn't fall on the baby.