ddrn97

I started nursing at a large hospital in the float pool about 8 months ago on nights as a new grad. I found med surg to be a drag. I’m not sure how I feel about floating it has it’s pros and cons. My manager has a 3 year rule/contract and I can’t transfer or go anywhere no exceptions. I feel unhappy and stuck like all I have worked for in school is going to waste. I feel that this 3 year “verbal” contract is ridiculous. They have denied transfers and have given other floats who wanted a change a really hard time. If I quit I will be blacklisted from this large organization which consist of most of the hospitals in my area. I was thinking of going per diem and finding something outpatient to do full time instead while still technically fulfilling my 3 year obligation at my current job. Problem is I know that there is a certain amount of time a nurse has to wait before switching to per diem here. I was hoping it was only one year but I have a feeling it is two years. I work nights and somehow magically before each shift lately I can barely sleep and my health and well being is suffering. Going to days I feel won’t help much since I feel like anxiety about work is mainly the problem. I just feel stuck and don’t know what to do. The thought of suffering through another 2 years of this makes me feel sick. All areas of my life are suffering right now. I wish I researched a little more about what I was getting into before I started this job and now I feel like it’s too late. I know I haven’t even hit a year yet but I feel like if I don’t like it now I don’t predict feeling better anytime soon. I have posted about this before and am trying to give it time but still feel the same way. I have some good shifts where I feel like being a nurse makes me feel good and that I’m making a difference and other times where I wonder why I got myself into this. I don’t think it’s me not liking nursing as much as it is feeling like I have no options while knowing there are so many more options out there which I’m cut off of now. Anyone else ever find themselves in a similar situation? Advice please?

My hospital is actually a magnet facility. They hire a lot of new grads into float pool. However because of the verbal contract I feel pretty stuck and afraid to make a move to one unit as I am not sure if i can do that.

I am about 6 months into my job, and about one month off of orientation by myself. I know a lot of you will disagree with this but I started out in float pool at a large hospital. I really do not like it. I really am coming to not enjoy being bounced around each night i go to work. I feel lonely and it is hard to make connections with people when I cannot stay in one place. It is also hard when they give me the assignment no one else on the floor wants, and when I have a hard time managing some nights because I am still new. I already feel burned out and I am tired of feeling so much anxiety and dread before going into work each time. I feel so unhappy. During my interview there was a verbal agreement to stay in float pool for 3 years/ a "verbal contract". There were no consequences stated about breaking this so called verbal contract. I already feel like it is going to be hard enough to make it to one year let alone 3. I don't think bedside nursing is for me and I feel trapped. I don not even know what I would do if I left this job. Any advice?

Hey everyone. I know many have posted about this before but I just need some advice and to vent. I've been on orientation for 15 weeks on nights and I'm on my own starting this week. I should feel like I'm ready after 15 weeks but I just don't know. I feel like I'm so used to having a preceptor to step in when I need help or to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes my preceptors have pointed little things out about patients that if I was by myself that I would've have been likely to miss. I also feel like there are still things I haven't had enough practice with like drains, IV sticks, wound care. I also never had an emergency occur with any of my patients. Im worried about recognizing a change in patients or having to call a rapid or code for the first time. I know it's impossible to do everything during orientation. I was told that as a new nurse the most important thing is being able to safely practice and to ask questions which I do anyway. I always look into the patients history, orders, medications, and labs when I see them. My last few weeks of orientation have been pretty easy because there has been a low census in the hospital. The hospital I work comes down hard on nurses for documentation and pretty much every little thing. Ugh I'm just so nervous!! How did everyone else feel at this point in their career and how did you handle it? I am afraid to look stupid or make mistakes.

Hi all. So last night I was wasting a narcotic with another nurse. I was rushing to go through the prompts on the Pyxis. I think I may have accidentally put in th wrong amount of medication that was to be wasted. The patient is to receive .5 mg of dilaudid. Which equals .25 ML that I will administer. Instead of putting 0.5 mg as the dose in the Pyxis I think I put .25 instead. So the incorrect amount was wasted. I told my preceptor which was my witness and she said she thought I put it in right and that it's not really going to be a problem. Has anyone came across this type of issue before?

I am a new grad nurse who is working on the night shift for about a month. I love night shift and prefer it as opposed to day shift. When I am working, I do not feel tired. I also have no problem sleeping during the day. However, on my days off I feel exhausted and feel like I am wasting my days. I do not want to do anything on my days off because I feel so tired. If I worked the night before, that whole day after work I sleep and get up around 5 pm. Then, I start to feel groggy and tired by 10-11. I will take an hour or two nap and then be up all night and sleep for a couple of hours overnight. The next day i will be up early, then feel tired around noon and go back to sleep and then sleep all day and take another really late 10 pm nap. I have always loved taking naps but I never felt like I needed to sleep this much before I started this job. Has anyone else on nights experienced problems with feeling tired like this? I am hoping I can figure out a better sleeping schedule on my days off but I am starting to worry if something is physically wrong with me causing me to feel constantly tired.

I was having this discussion with someone earlier. I was told that only new reformulated zosyn is compatible with lactated ringers solution at y site. What do they mean by "reformulated" and just how common are these reformulated versions of zosyn? Does anyone hang zosyn with LR? I am always hanging zosyn on my unit and want to be sure.

I am new on orientation with a preceptor. Patient was scheduled for metoprolol at 9 pm but the last nurse gave it at noon. It's supposed to be every 12 hours and I gave it at 9:30. I didn't realize that the last nurse pushed it off that late and didn't check the exact time. My preceptor said it would only be a problem is the patients HR and what not was not stable when I gave it or after I gave it. This wasn't the case because I checked the HR prior to administering and it was fine. Has this happened to anyone/ ever have been a problem?

I'm hired as a med surg/telemetry float on night shift at a large hospital. Many new grads in this hospital are hired for float and many seem to enjoy it. I'm on orientation and although I feel I'm doing well as well as being told I'm making good progress, I just don't feel competent enough. I know this is normal but I always wonder is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? I'm always stressed out and worrying about doing the job well and handling things. When I was training on days there was so much going on that there is no way I could handle it all on my own. Most of the time I get these thoughts in my head then things end up going ok for the most part during my shift. I just feel lost and a little scared

Thank you for your opinions

Yes that's exactly what I think the purpose of it is.

I just started a nursing job. I understand that each time we receive our patients, we check and overlook their charts which I always do with my preceptor. I was told that we enter a nursing order under our name for a "chart check" which then appears under the patient's orders. I never understood why we have to do it that way. Yesterday I forgot to enter the "chart check" orders for my patients, and I am unclear if this is an actual problem or not since I do not understand why we have to enter it. What do other hospitals and facilities do?

I am just going through this right now.. as a new grad nurse. Yesterday was a busy shift for me and I realized things I may have forgot to do or do better, etc. I normally am very hard on myself, so each time I leave I usually am always stuck on atleast one thing I feel I could've done better. A little anxiety is healthy depending on the situation.. it means next time you'll do things better or differently, that you're learning and growing as a nurse, and that you care about your responsibility as a nurse. I also get anxious before a shift wondering what kind of patients am I gonna have, am I going to be able to handle things today, etc. which is perfectly normal. But there is a point where it could be unhealthy to be anxious about everything all the time you can honestly make yourself sick to your stomach. Try to relax and remind yourself you're doing the best you can and that there will be better days/ shifts. Lean on other nurses/coworkers if you can to help you and guide you if you can because everyone goes through this to some degree. Good news is most of us do make it out alive:up:

Knowing math will help you as a nurse. But the math is also pretty basic math such as figuring out IV rates, dosages, etc. which are pretty much ratio and proportion problems. Once you are in nursing school they will drill nursing math into your head, I know my school did. Now I am confident with math used i=as a nurse. But here is the thing, ever since I started my job as a nurse, math is usually already done for us and is stated in the orders exactly the rate we need to set an IV pump at, and the dosage we need to give. I rarely need to double check any math already done for my meds unless I really suspect something is off. There are so many more challenges in nursing other than the math honestly (not to scare you), but trust me math will probably be the lesser of your worries when on the job.

I just started a nursing job as a new grad RN a couple of weeks ago. Things were going great and my preceptor thinks I am doing well. However, yesterday was a terrible shift. The few days I did before yesterday were smooth and I was taking care of about 4-5 patients independently on a busy tele floor getting everything done for the most part on my own. Yesterday morning I walked into a code blue, long reports on my heavy patients, stressed out and difficult family members, NG tubes and pegs on a few of my patients, etc. I couldn't do as much as I normally could on my own so my preceptor helped me out more. At the end of the day after I left I realized things we forgot or should have done differently. I am feeling discouraged as if I will either get into trouble or if I am cut out for job this overall. 1)Normally I sign off on each patient in the morning that a chart check was done and I didn't check them off this time even though we both chart checked together. Between the long reports and me trying to make sense of everything, being interrupted every 2 minutes, I forgot to sign off on chart checks. Not sure if anyone looks into when checks were done which are usually shown under the patient's orders. 2)My facility is strictly monitoring overriden meds and I had to override a multivitamin because the barcode wasn't readable. I didnt want to do this but I was so overloaded I just had to override it. 3)we had a patient who had a blood pressure SBP 190 and my preceptor consulted with the practitioner about it who said they wanted to wait another hour and re check it. Even though my preceptor took care of this I couldn't help but think after: did she chart that the provider said this? I could also be responsible if this was to be questioned and/or something went wrong. 4) After giving tylenol IVPB near the end of shift to a patient with a 103 fever we repeated a rectal after which went down to about 100. Did I remember to document the temp...nope.