I'm new here,and need help.I'll do my best to make it short and sweet.
I'm a new grad,and over 30 y.o..I went to school to become an L&D nurse,with CNM aspirations.
My orientation(120 days to date) looks like this:
Ten preceptors,and for the last 30 days I've had one delivery with which to gain experience.At a recent performance eval,I was told that "all your preceptors think you're no further along in your orientation than you were after your first month of employment." I'm orienting to l&d,nursery,pp and c/s circulator.
This is the first time I'd heard this,and when I questioned two preceptors about this,they said they never said anything resembling this.Additionally... immediately after my last delivery,the attending physician thanked me and said I did a good job.This is especially key since the majority of docs here have a rep for treating nurses horribly.
I'm not getting enough L&D experience because I've been on nights for 30+days.Many nurses are being put on-call (night and day) since census is low,so I'm not doing what I need in order to be more independent.
When the NM had the eval with me I reminded her that I'd had this many preceptors,etc...and her reply was,"We're not dealing in excuses."
Although I've been given another 60 days,in orientation,I've been told to think about going to a med-surg,and come back in a year.
What are your thought about my orientation,etc...?
Wow, JMO, but your nm sounds pretty nasty to me. That was an ugly thing to say to somebody in an eval, if you ask me. Yikes. I once turned down a job offer because the nm left the door open to her office while she berated an employee while I was sitting right there in the waiting room outside her office waiting to be interviewed.
Diplomacy is important in all situations.
Anyway, I think you've gotten some good advice here. Good luck.
the problem, as I see it, is a lack of objective information. How can you do anything different if you don't know what you are doing wrong? I developed an evaluation form based on the nursing job description with specific objectives to be met. We scored them, and the items with the higher scores do not neet further attention. Items with lower scores need to be addressed. They are scored by the manager, the preceptor and a self-assessment by the new nurse. Everybody gets together weekly, or biweekly, to discuss the scores and set goals for the next week. If a nurse consistently scores low in the same area, that warrants a consult with the manager and maybe termination. Depends on the issue of course. Anyway, I think you need more FACTS, not impressions.
I can't thank you all enough for the support you've all given me.I was starting to think I was the problem in this situation,but I know better now.
Marilyn...I'm glad you mentioned the journal-I've done that from the beginning-if for no other reason to document on my experiences/lack of experiences.
Obviously,one delivery in during the last month is not enough.
I am a preceptor and you are certainly getting the shaft. You are in no way responsible for the lousy experiences (or maybe lack thereof) that you are having. You need to be assigned ONE or TWO preceptors at best and your NM needs to have a check list of skills for you so that you can go slowly through the list and check off skills and experiences as you have them. We are also an LDRP unit. We usually start the new nurse off in PP, then NSY and then after they are semi comfortable (and have completed or are near to completing their NRP), then we move on to L&D and try to do it as much as is possible. I know there will always be days that you have low census or no labor patients, but that's the way that is. If you get no satisfaction from this MN or the unit, I would certainly look elsewhere. You have a perfect reason to be highly dissatisfied with your experiences so far. If you do leave, make sure that personnel (and your NM) knows exactly why you are leaving when you have that exit interview.
I am also a new grad in L&D and over 30. I can so feel your pain! To give you a frame of reference- my training is 12 weeks of classroom and clinical time with 2 set preceptors. 3 clinical days and one classroom day. We are constantly supported and encouraged by management and told that even if when we are on our own (which is not for 4 weeks after our preceptorship ends) we still will not be expected to know everything. We are oriented to only Labor and Deliver. I live in a suburb outside of San Francisco; we have about 350-400 births/month.
However, I believe that what you are experiencing is more than just the failure of your hospital/nurse mgr. to train and support you. I believe that many nurses treat new nurses like ****! It is so reminicent of when I was 22 years old and pledging a sorority. It's like you have to put up with them ostrasizing you and snide comment before you can be accepted into their circles. I work day shift right now with a bunch of crownies who do just that. I cannot wait to go on nights! It sounds like you have the worst version of that. If I can say anything to you it's stand up for yourself. Write up what you think is unfair (lack of training, experience) and submit it to your manager and CC her boss. At this point you have nothing to lose. And don't by all means go into Med-Surg (they'll tell you to just because THEY had to). Also, I believe some older nurses have a special level of annoyance about new learners who are over 30; most started nursing fresh out of hs or college; they assume b/c we are older we should be more experienced (we do have more common sense, but nursing judgment and refinement of takes time and experience. Remember, noone can make you feel inferior without your consent! Good luck. Suzanne
Hi,everybody...
I'm new here,and need help.I'll do my best to make it short and sweet.
I'm a new grad,and over 30 y.o..I went to school to become an L&D nurse,with CNM aspirations.
My orientation(120 days to date) looks like this:
Ten preceptors,and for the last 30 days I've had one delivery with which to gain experience.At a recent performance eval,I was told that "all your preceptors think you're no further along in your orientation than you were after your first month of employment." I'm orienting to l&d,nursery,pp and c/s circulator.
This is the first time I'd heard this,and when I questioned two preceptors about this,they said they never said anything resembling this.Additionally... immediately after my last delivery,the attending physician thanked me and said I did a good job.This is especially key since the majority of docs here have a rep for treating nurses horribly.
I'm not getting enough L&D experience because I've been on nights for 30+days.Many nurses are being put on-call (night and day) since census is low,so I'm not doing what I need in order to be more independent.
When the NM had the eval with me I reminded her that I'd had this many preceptors,etc...and her reply was,"We're not dealing in excuses."
Although I've been given another 60 days,in orientation,I've been told to think about going to a med-surg,and come back in a year.
What are your thought about my orientation,etc...?
At the last meeting with the nm,she said,"We'll put you with nurse betty and nurse jane next week on days." Monday came and guess what....I WAS paired with betty for 2 days.The other 2 days nurse jane wasn't there(she had "management duties" to fulfill,and couldn't work with me).The mgt. duties for jane have always been required,and apparently they supersede orienting me.The nm knew jane would have to do this when she told me I'd be paired with jane.I did all could do in this situation.I went in this morning and resigned.
The NM then precedes to give me career counseling by telling me I should be a doula.I just graduated,am 39 y.o. and have aspirations of becoming a CNM and a nurse educator.I have doula training,but can't afford to do that with 2 young kids at home and student loan debt,too.I was furious.
Thanks for writing EVERYONE.My husband finally realized after reading everyone's posts that maybe it wasn't my fault.
I'm glad to see you did what was best for you. I am not surprised that this place has a hard time retaining new nurses with the attitudes they display.
shay
829 Posts
Wow, JMO, but your nm sounds pretty nasty to me. That was an ugly thing to say to somebody in an eval, if you ask me. Yikes. I once turned down a job offer because the nm left the door open to her office while she berated an employee while I was sitting right there in the waiting room outside her office waiting to be interviewed.
Diplomacy is important in all situations.
Anyway, I think you've gotten some good advice here. Good luck.