actress8503

I've had patients on drugs come up off the streets with large switch blades on them and once had a hostile patient come in with a gun in her purse. Never had any weapons used on me and I've seemed to escape any physical abuse thus far thankfully. Although there have always been stories of my co-workers getting pushed, hit, wrestled to the ground, and spit on. Scary stuff like that can happen when you work in the ER. I agree with you kty1. I think there needs to be more changes to ensure all of our safety.

Thank you everyone so much who has replied. You have helped so much and made me feel a whole lot better. I appreciate your support and insight. :redbeathe

So it's been a little over 1 year since I became a RN...and things have never seemed more gloomy. I really thought I would like being a nurse and I would eventually fall into my comfort zone just like every other job I worked before becoming a nurse. But that hasn't been the case at all. Instead, I have never felt so depressed in all my life. So I am just going to let out how I am feeling and if anyone wants to share their opinion or give advice feel free. I began my adventures in nursing in the Neuro ICU on night shift. Although orientation was hard as hell, I was optimistic back then, and was confident that I would be an awesome new nurse. Several other new nurses who started when I did, didn't even make it through orientation. But I made it through and I was excited about helping my patients. As soon as orientation ended...the party ended as well. All my sugar coated ways of thinking how it would be were smashed into a million pieces as reality set in. The Neuro-surgeons were arrogant and never very nice. I was ripped a new one by a Critical Care doctor for something that was the previous shift's fault. Nobody on my unit tried to stick up for me...they just gawked as I was screamed at for 10 minutes. I was only given apologies when I let my nursing manager know. I constantly had to search for help. I was given patients who had just coded before change of shift (my second week on my own as a brand new nurse) with no support from my co-workers. I felt like I was drowning so many times during my shift...desperate to make sure my patients were safe and that I was catching everything. It was difficult to find anyone who would help me when I needed someone. I was always being pressured to move faster...get charting done quicker, etc. Then one day, something awful happened. My patient had a bad reaction to a IVP medication given by me...and although this was not my fault either (I had followed the order exactly as written by the resident and had asked many of my colleagues about the safety of giving the medication IVP before administering it, and I gave it very slow) I still felt awful about it, going over in my head what I could've done to prevent something like this from happening. The patient turned out to be fine...but I was not. I have been terrified of giving IVP medications since the incident, even though I have given many since that were all fine. I obsess over them all the time. I continue to move pretty slow...making sure everything is safe. Some other crappy things that have happened to me include the following: One night I tried to shift a patient by myself (thinking I'm invincible since I'm young and strong at 23...stupid) because nobody was around to help me and I ended up straining my back pretty badly. I had an AIDS patient cough bloody sputum in my eye when I was changing a dressing near their shoulder. I always felt sick from working the night shift. My body just felt funky. After 6 months at the place, I tried to throw the towel in. My managers convinced me to stay...telling me how good of a nurse I am and how much the patients love me. They offered me some time off since I had endured some hardships that most new grads don't have straightaway and gave me a few weeks off...which I thought would help me gather my thoughts and solve some problems. Instead I returned to work with more dread. I began to make it through my shifts easier and a little bit faster...but the strong distaste and dread never left. I cried almost every day before going to work, grateful to return home in the morning. I knew I needed to get out of there for my own sanity...but being the fighter I am, I was determined to make it through so I could have 1 whole year of nursing experience in an ICU. I did make it, but by that time...I didn't even know if I wanted to be a nurse anymore. I've been a happy, extroverted, fun person my whole life. I was a good student who could accomplish anything I set out to do. These feelings of defeat and depression were unfamiliar to me. I wasn't sure how to proceed. Although I desperately wanted out of nursing, my friends and family encouraged me to try another area of nursing on dayshift that I might like. So last month I started a job in the ED on dayshift. I really liked it at first. But our ED is also the busiest in the state and a hospital in the area just closed down a few weeks ago, so we are getting slammed way beyond normal...and I am trying very hard to learn the ropes around there while this is all occurring. As my orientation is quickly coming to an end...I wonder how I will ever get everything done that I am supposed to (I am not used to having 4 patients). I don't know what I would've done some days if my preceptor hadn't been there to help me. I am terrified of being on my own...again. I feel that same awful feeling of drowning and dread that I felt at my last job. My preceptor tells everyone how great I am...and I just smile and say thank you, when really I want to scream. I want to take good care of my patients...but I feel stretched beyond belief. So I am in a sticky situation once more. So I really don't know what to do. I am beginning to think nursing just isn't right for me. I am always tired and stressed and feel depressed. I am even considering seeing a counselor for the first time in my life. Although I am told I am good at it, I am not happy. I would love to go back to school for anything that is not in the medical field...but I do not have the means for that right now. I went to school on scholarship and do not have the money to go back right now. What do you think? Should I continue to stick nursing out in hopes it will get better? I am pretty miserable. I am not sure if another area will fix that or not. Sorry this is so long. I appreciate you guys. God bless everyone in nursing who was made for it and loves it. I don't know how you guys do it.

I've been pulled over 3 times in my driving career (all for speeding), and have only been let out of one ticket and that just so happened to be when I was wearing my nursing scrubs. At the time I was actually a student nurse still and the motor cop pulled me over, saw my scrubs and stethoscope and asked if I was an RN. I told him not yet, but in another year I would be. He told me right then and there that I would be let off with a warning, but made me promise that I would take good care of him if he ever ended up in the hospital. One of my friends is a cop and he told me that police officers always tend to let medical professionals go because law enforcement and medical professionals team up a lot and rely on one another to make the world a better place.

Jamonit...when I read your post I seriously wondered if you had just read my mind because I am feeling that way about everything you listed. I am a new gard (Graduated May 12th) on a Neuro ICU floor with only 2 weeks left on orientation. I am scared to death! I often feel like I am drowning. And I almost always have to spend an hour after my shift is over charting because I fell so far behind during the shift because I was so busy with patient care. It can be very overwhelming. I have tried so hard to figure out how I can move faster and not look so stupid half the time (I tend to ask a million questions and often I wonder if my preceptor thinks I am retarded, although she is really nice). I obssess over medications, checking them over and over again before giving them. My preceptor tells me I am just lacking confidence which makes me feel awful because I am a confident person, this job is just the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. I seriously had this glamerous vision of myself walking onto my unit as a new grad who really knew her stuff and wowed my preceptors and staff. I really wanted to make a good first impression. Now I feel so far away from that, it isn't even funny. I like the people I work with, but I often question what they may say behind my back. I have seen some of them have what I like to call gossip hour when they suprisingly have some down time (I don't know how they manage the down time) and they say some pretty harsh things about one another. Its very disheartening. I'd like to think they understand I am a newbie and don't pass judgement, but there are like 5 or 6 new people along with me on my unit and I feel like they rank us on who will turn out to be the best new nurse. I had a really bad feeling they talk crap about me when this particular incident happend: 2 nights ago when I worked, heard an alarm going off in a patient's room that wasn't mine. I walked in there and this lady was trying to get out of bed and she was attached to an EVD, art line, etc! I turned the EVD off to the patient (becuase you are supposed to anytime they sit higher or lower than the drain), told her to lie down, and told her I would find her nurse. I found the nurse a few doors down helping another nurse and told her that her patient was trying to get out of bed and use the batheroom and her reaction really scared me. She was like, "WHAT! Is she out of bed now?! Why didn't you offer her a bedpan?" and when I explained what I had done for the patient she just gave the other nurse in the room this look and they both exchanged this glance that read "This new grad is so stupid." I replied, "I can go get her a bed pan...I just am not familiar with her and thought it was best that you attend to her needs..." and she was like, "Forget it, I'll get her the bed pan." No thank you or anything. Just annoyance in her tone of voice. I was pissed...I already was having a bad night. To make matters worse, I always feel like me and my preceptor get the hardest patients to care for on the floor. Something is always going wrong during my shift and I know it's an ICU and these sort of things happen, but I mean something is happening like every hour of the shift to my patients...even my preceptor tells me they are hard patients, so I don't think it is fair when she tells me I need to move quicker when I am trying my very hardest and learning how to handle siutations like this for the very first time. I am sorry this is so long. I just really wanted to vent...and now I feel a lot better. Anybody have suggestions on how one can improve with time management?

Hey thanks for your input. I ended up sticking w/ St. Joe's in their neuro ICU and I love it. My orientation has gone very well thus far. I am glad Scottsdale Osborn turned out to be a good fit for you.

Raindreamer has it right. Ask yourself those questions about their orientation program. At St. Joes in the Neuro ICU they give their new grads a twelve week orientation program in which lab time to practice skills is incorporated. They also have weekly objectives that must be met to move forward and stay on track through the orientation and the new grad is assigned to only one preceptor or possibly two if the main one goes out of town or something.

They might have the same policy since they are both CHW. I had one of my clinical rotations at Chandler Regional and during orientation I thought the lady had said that they require their externs to work for them after graduation but I must have misheard or she was mistaken. Sorry to misinform on that. And concerning Banner, I am just going by what my classmates who are externs there have told me about requirements.

Well if you don't like it there as an extern you can quit and nothing will be owed. If you work for them as an extern 6 months or longer than you need to start worrying about time for time. They actually have the most at ease extern program I have come across because I know at Chandler Regional and Banner, if you become an extern you must sign that you will commit a few years to working there after you graduate. There is no leaving by paying back what you have earned. Plus, $600 isn't all the money that was earned. I make around $300 a paycheck with my weekend and night hours so pretty much the hospital is losing money if externs decide not to work for them. I could still quit externing now and not owe them money, but I am learning so much and I love my preceptor so I choose not to.

Thanks thrashej! St. Joes did not give me a tuition reimbursment. I didn't apply for one because I have a tuition waiver. However, externing there does require time for time and if I decide to leave them I owe them $600 for the six months I worked there.

For summer they require 36 hours per week, for winter break it is 72 hours for the entire break (and not to exceed 40 hours per week) and during school it is 24 hours per month min-48 hours per month max. If you are in a year round or acclerated program (as I am) then you are excluded from the summer and winter hours and only to follow school hours. Hope that helps. I was able to work right away after I went through orientation.

Hi everyone...the time has come for me in which I need to make a decision (very soon) about where I want to work after I graduate this May. I really would like to work in the PICU, ICU, or ED. My top three hospital choices are Scottsdale Osborn, St. Joes, and the VA. I was just offered a position at St. Joes in the Neuro ICU. I told them I needed to think about it. I have an interview with Scottsdale Osborn at the end of the month for a new grad position in which the different areas available to me will be revealed. I currently am putting in 156 hours at the VA in their ED for the last part of my schooling and I absolutly love it there and there may be a good chance that I could land a job there since I am completing my preceptorship with the facility. Here are my concerns: I live in the east valley, so driving to the VA and St. Joes makes me crazy sometimes. I have been stuck in traffic for over an hour at times. Scottsdale Osborn is much closer, but since I do not know what areas are available to me right now, I do not know if getting a job in the critical care areas as a new grad are even available right now. From what I know from doing clinicals at Scottsdale, the people there seem nice, but I have not worked closely for long amounts of time there like I have the VA and St. Joes. The VA and St. Joes have very nice people who work there and I am not sure Scottsdale will be as good as these two hospitals are concerning staff and co-workers. The pay is much better at Scottsdale than the other two hospitals so that is another factor. The ED is my top choice, but St. Joes won't take new grads into their ED and again, Scottsdale is a mystery as far as department openings for new grads, so the VA is my likely choice for that. If I leave St. Joes, I will owe them money since I am an extern there right now, and I would feel really bad leaving after everything I have learned there in my externship. The problem with the ED at the VA is that not a whole lot of assessments go on, and I feel that is important to gain strength in that area as a new grad, plus waiting for the opportunity to snag a position there is a big gamble since I do not have an official interview set up with them anytime soon and because they are overstaffed, there are no openings right now. Starting in the Neuro ICU makes me a little nervous. It is something I would really like to do, but as a brand new nurse I am scared that I will be overwhelmed. But, I am afraid if I wait to interview at Scottsdale or decide to risk the chance I could have at the VA ED that I will lose my offer to the Neuro ICU at St. Joes. What would you guys do? What is your honest opinion about these hospitals, going into such areas as a new grad, and weighing out these pros and cons? Sorry this is so long, but I really would appreciate some input.

I extern on the tele unit at St. Joes and love it. The pay is $12 something an hour, but if you work nights there is a differential and weekends are also a differential. I work both so I make around $15 an hour.

The pay for a new grad is $23 an hour in the Neuro ICU at St. Joes. I was just offered a position there today.