Kroov

I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself, I'm sure you're a great nurse! You want to do well and that's important. It's really not possible to know it all in the first year or even few years, after 10 years I still recognise my limitations, try to develop my skills and ask for help when I need it. Likewise you don't need to know your specialty right away, there will be plenty of opportunities to change again in future if you want. The experience will come, if you have support from your colleagues you will eventually become more confident with high acuity patients.

I changed to Monday-Friday from 12hr shifts 4 years ago, it was a big adjustment at first - having less time for appointments and running errands etc, as well as a pay cut, but now I love it. I have so much more work life balance, never have to check if I'm free for a weekend event and have a normal sleeping pattern. I'm actually going back to 12hr shifts now for a promotion and am pretty nervous about it!

I work as an RN in the ER and we had a patient present with psychosis. We asked her for a urine sample, and when I went to collect it from her she looked me in the eye and drank about 300ml of it from the dish. The only thing she said was 'Should I not have done that?', with a big smile on her face. Then about 30 minutes later, I heard her shouting 'Nurse! Nurse!'. She had tried to pull one of her toenails clean off. I then had to pull the remainder of the nail off for her as it was hanging by a thread. Psych seen her soon after and said, this is how she normally is, and she made her way home.