newnurse51

Don't freak out. I went to the bitter end and passed. I was told that if you go to a higher number you roughly have a 50/50 chance of passing. Think positive!

Re: Dear Abbey, about a nurse don't know if it's true or not...but something about this statement made me cringe: Quote: The doctor needs to counsel his nurse for her poor judgment. someone needs to write and tell abbey that its not the doctor's job to discipline a nurse because the nurse doesn't belong to him. if their is a valid complaint against a nurse, it should be made towards hospital administration or the state board of nursing. Not sure I agree with you on this one. I think the doctor has the right to tell the nurse that she used poor judgment in telling the patient's wife that her husband would be truthful. I don't think you can consider that this is disciplining the nurse - just telling her she used poor judgment and not to do it again.

What this basically boils down to is what is administration going to do about it. It sounds like they are going to look the other way and hire this abusive nurse back. I hate the way administration works in most nursing homes. When you question their policies they peg you as a nuisance or a trouble maker. You were correct in reporting it - don't be surprised if nothing happens.

Even though I am not a big fan of white I wear white pants, colored top and a white jacket. I want patients to know when I walk into a room that I am a nurse. Of course I was flabbergasted to see a CNA wearing white pants and adminstration didn't have a problem with her choice.

Floor nursing is very stressful. There are constant interruptions, too many things a new grad is suppose to know. I lasted 9 months on a telemetry floor when I was involved in 2 errors and told I was unsafe to care for patients. Don't give up on yourself, don't give up on nursing. Floor nursing may not be right for you. I would look into other options. It's not worth the stress you are going through. Remember that high levels of stress will knock out your immune system which in turn will leave you open to all kinds of illness. You sound like a nurse who is trying very hard, cares that she is doing the right thing and is trying to learn from her mistakes. I would see what else is out there.

My orientation was 6 weeks but I got it extended to 8 weeks. My preceptor felt I was ready to be on my own. From day one I felt overwhelmed each time I worked. I would have liked to have a longer orientation but 6 weeks was considered adequate. My confidence has taken another crash. The LTC facility I went to work for fired me after 3 months. They wanted me to take on some extra work and I told them I couldn't do it. I would have had to stay beyond the 13 hour shift I had already put in. During that 13 hour shift I was proably on my feet for at least 11 hours. As it turned out the extra work did get done by another nurse. 2 days later the DON called me and told me I was fired for being insubordinate. I was not permitted to give any defense at all. They didn't care that I was a hard worker, always on time, and I never called in sick like half the staff did. My first year in nursing has truly been a rocky one.

We have to create a care plan for each new admission we get. After that I don't think any nurse looks at them. We basically know the nursing care that is needed with each diagnosis- I hated them in school but I can see why they were important. They are rarely looked at once you graduate and are working in the real world.

Started off in telemetry right after graduation and lasted 8 months. Hospital floor nursing is not for me. Currently working as a weekend house supervisor in a nursing home and it is far less stressful. No benefits though. Not sure where my niche is yet but it's definitely not floor nursing. Several of my fellow graduates who started on the floor didn't last long and went on to other areas.

I started my nursing career very late in life. I graduated in my 50's and found it to be the hardest most stressful work I have ever done. It's a constant love/hate relationship. I love helping people and making a difference in their lives. It's a wonderful feeling when you know some action you did probably saved someone's life. When a patient says you are the best nurse they ever had you will glow for the rest of the shift. On the down side, working with difficult co-workers, management, constant interruptions, stress, etc has left me cursing that I ever went into nursing on many a days. The most positive thing about nursing is the wide variety. I truly believe there is a niche for everyone - you just have to find it. You have given alot of yourself to become a nurse, financially, emotionally and physically - give nursing a chance and find that right niche for yourself.

Re: Preparing new grads It's an everyday thing and not a specific scenario, but I'd say time management is a critical skill that's really difficult in the beginning. Learning how to do 10 things at once with constant distractions and interruptions, without forgetting anything. This is right on the money. I had the hardest time with this one - the interruptions were driving me crazy. There is never enough time to do everything you want. I made up my own worksheet where I could list protocals and labs, which patients got their meds at different times and anything else I could think of to help me get through the shift. To top it off I would usually remember something I forgot to do right before I drifted off to sleep at night. We had a standing joke, if the patient was still alive and and had received all of their meds by the end of their shift we were doing something right. Everything else was just icing on the cake.

You are an important part of the team. We would be lost without you hard working CNA's. There have been many times I have been alerted to a medical change by the CNA. You are the first line of defense in health care. I admire you guys.

I think the hospital acted so harshly toward me because the two errors were back to back. I did not hang the wrong fluid on the IV pump but as far as I know I was blamed completely for the error. This is an error I doubt I will ever repeat. I do realize though that I am glad to be away from hospital nursing. It was too frantic for me - the hospital I worked with believed in a sink or swim situation for all new graduates. Very little support - I worked weekend option so I was basically on my own. One of my first patients I received outside of orientation was MRSA, tube feeder, had a trach that had to be suctioned, incontinent with Stage 3 ulcers. This is the patient they gave a brand new grad. Should have ran then.

My error with the IV bolus was that I thought the Normal Saline was on the primary pump. It was hard to tell from the tubing because someone had placed extra long tubing on the IV pump that had become tangled and you could not tell which tubing belonged to the primary pump or which tubing belonged to the secondary pump. I should have painstaking traced the tubing and I didn't. That was my error. I assumed the normal saline I needed was on the primary pump and it turned out to be on the secondary pump. The patient got the solution that was on the primary pump. I was told I had set the pump correctly, my mistake was not realizing the patient was getting a bolus from the wrong fluid.

I recently had a new nurse's worst nightmare. I was involved in two major errors back to back at the hospital where I worked. The first error involved the wrong IV fluid being bolused into a patient. Someone had the wrong fluid on the primary pump, the IV tubing was extra long and tangled and I never caught the error. The second error was a med error. The patient was vomiting and in respiratory distress and I missed that the patient was allergic to a certain medicine because my patient fact sheet said he had no known allergies. The hospital told me they no longer wanted me having direct patient care and they were giving me 3 weeks to find another position at the hospital that did not involve direct patient care or find another job elsewhere. I could not believe this had happened to me. I was always so careful in everything I did. I fortunately found work at a nursing home and I am now making more money and have far less stress. The residents are so sweet where I work. This error happened over two months ago and I still can't believe it happened. I'm glad I am no longer involved in hospital work because of the stress but it has made me doubt my skills. I was in grad school to become a clinical nurse specialist and I dropped out because I doubt if I will ever work in a hospital again. It's going to take a long time to get over this one.