One year later...is patient care for me?

[croppyRN]

I hope someone reading this can give me some good advice. After over one year working as an RN at a short term rehab/LTC facility, I am beginning to have doubts. I love taking care my patients, and find the older population to be very satisfying to work with. The problem is, I still don't feel confident in my nursing skills. Of course, I am doing so much better now than when I started, but I still feel lost, doubting myself, not really remembering what to do in certain situations. I look at the seasoned nurses and long to have that experience. But I also look at some of the nurses that started around the same time as me, and they appear to be much more knowledgable, confident and quicker with their work. I know time management is part of the issue with me. I also don't like the stress that sometimes comes up, either with patients deteriorating condition, or dealing with difficult aides. I guess I just don't know if this is where I should be. But I love medicine and don't want to walk away from all of my work at nursing school and just waste my RN license.

Does anyone have advise on where I could go from here? I considered MDS, but again, this involves patient assessments. I worry that I haven't the right skill sets for that job. Plus, I'd have to go back to the classroom for more education. I'm not really thrilled about that.

Are there other options for me that I haven't considered? I apologize for my lengthy new thread. I just wanted to give as much info as I thought would be helpful. I suppose this could be different definition for TMI!! :)

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

How much time are you investing into your learning? Reviewing text books, best practise guidelines, journal articles, courses? Only you can decide if LTC is the right fit, but no matter what area you decide, know that you will need to spend time continually learning and reading. Engaging in learning activities will increase your knowledge and confidence with patient care.

[croppyRN]

How much time are you investing into your learning? Reviewing text books, best practise guidelines, journal articles, courses? Only you can decide if LTC is the right fit, but no matter what area you decide, know that you will need to spend time continually learning and reading. Engaging in learning activities will increase your knowledge and confidence with patient care.

Thanks for your advice joanna73. I think those are good ideas, but my problem seems to be taking the textbook/classroom knowledge and applying it on the floor. It scares me that one year later I am still having trouble with that

[croppyRN]

Hi joanna73. Thanks for replying. Your advice is very good, but my problem seems to be taking the knowledge from the textbooks/classrooms and applying them on the floor. Especially when I have more difficult decisions to make. It really upsets me that I am still having a problem with this a year later

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

Perhaps you could seek out the nurse educator for your unit, and/or a senior nurse who you trust to ask for some guidance? First, though, you should take the initiative and develop some sort of a written learning plan for yourself, identifying areas of strength, as well as areas that you would like to develop. People are there to help, but you will need to decide on a course of action. After a year, you should be able to put most of the basic textbook knowledge into practise. Or maybe you are doing so, and you're too hard on yourself?