Swittiepie

I'm so sorry you feel this way. I finished orientation and I got confident with my assessment and how to handle stress. I ended up getting prescribed trazodone for sleep?. Worked in the neuro ICU, up until Feb this year, and moved to the pediatric ICU. I will say It's so much better. I still have the fear of making mistake or not knowing what to do in time of emergency, but the truth is we can never be fully prepared for what's to come. You'll make mistake that's certain, and I've grown to learn it's normal (as long as it's not fatal). You'll learn from it. I had a patient who I mistakenly checked the lab value of 6pm for instead of 12am. I ended up giving an additional dose of the electrolyte supplement. He had a 3 sec brief ekg change and was fine after. I caught my mistake, I remember crying and the nurse practioner talking down to me like I was a complete idiot. Now I know to always time mark my labs when I check orders at the beginning of the shift. Neuro is a lot of to know. Patients with the same type of stroke don't have the same time of outcome. I found it out understand neuro defects. I am still struggling to understand cardiac defect. It's a process. It gets better. Someone told me you don't start feeling capable as a nurse until your 1 year mark. If at the end of orientation you don't feel comfortable, try something else maybe neuro stepdown where it's slower paced, or a different ICU. The reason I left the Neuro ICU was because the unit had a lot of bullies that just weren't willing to help, they talk down on you, and forget they all started somewhere. I think it's important to find somewhere you're comfortable in, not just the patient but also your co-workers. They will make or break you. Be gentle on yourself, you're still a baby nurse and you'll get to that level of confidence soon!

Hi all, I am a new grad nurse at the neuro ICU. I'm originally from another country and came to the US few years ago to study nursing. I graduated and got a job in the South. I started back in July. I have two preceptors one for night, and one for day. My night shift preceptor I struggled with the first 3 days as it was hard understanding her slangs as I'm not used to it from my culture, it made communication difficult. Slowly I started understanding her and shifted to day shift after 3 nights with my night shift preceptor. I'm with my day shift preceptor and she's very nice and quiet. She lets me do things on my own and is opened to me asking questions. I'm 2 months into the job, and I just feel depressed and overwhelmed. There's alot of documentation which I'm better at, critical thinking that I feel useless too, because I can't critically think the way they want me to yet, I'm very scared of the unknown like what if I can't do this job? I cry sometimes because it's hard. I'll be off orientation soon, and I asked my day shift preceptor what she thinks. She said she thinks I'm getting better, that I just need to work on thinking more critical and being confident. Sometimes I forget to do 1 or two things because it's just a lot, especially on day shitf. It's too busy, we have rounds with doctors and talking with them about patient makes me anxious and I stammer or mistakenly say the wrong thing cause I'm anxious, and then I look like an idiot when they correct me. I don't now what to do? I don't know if this is normal? If it gets better. I'm worried and depressed. I have a couple more days on day orientation and then I move to 3 weeks night orientation with my other preceptor and then I am off orientation. Sometimes I also feel like maybe my coworkers talk behind my back because I'm from another country, and struggle to understand things easily not saying this is true. I just get shy around them because I think they feel I'm not good enough for the unit. I have all this weird feeling and overthink things. I also have a friend that started with me in July at the same unit and she quit last week because her preceptors and the job were overwhelming. Luckily for me I have better preceptors, more open and helpful, she didn't. I think her quitting makes me feel more anxious that I should do likewise. I need advice on what to do? Has anyone been here before? What did you do? Did it get better when you were off orientation? This week I struggled with understanding how to set Bolus feed on the kangaroo pump as well as titrating medications. I also struggle with knowing what to do if a patient desat, at what point do I call a code for vitals? Updating family about their loved ones, what do I say?