Hello Princezzzz,
Everyone here knows the feelings you are experiencing. Its a scary new world out there and after clinical experiences with teachers there to help, it is awsome to be on your own.
My first job as a nurse was in LTC. I was made a charge nurse and told I would have 6 or more weeks of training. It didn't go down that way, but I did get some training. When they turned me out on my own, my first nights for a long time ran into overtime. I was told that can't happen, you need to speed up. I didn't see how that was possible. I was going all the time, missing breaks, missing lunch. Patients would need special treatments or procedures and my medpass would be late. I was a nervous wreck when I came home and thought I would never "be a nurse." A friend of mine started at the same time and had the same experience. We would go out after work and compare to see who had the worst time during our shifts, lol.
After a while I noticed that I was finishing on time once in a while. Then it became more common. I found ways to speed up my medpass, delegate time-consuming tasks that didn't need a nurse to my competent aides, chart better and more efficiently. A job I had hated became (almost) a piece of cake, after several months. It takes a couple of years to fully learn about what you are doing, and even after that you are learning always.
You don't learn how to be a nurse in school. They teach you about the human body and procedures and give you references so that you can make educated decisions, however, the first months working are the real training ground.
I determined after my first few weeks on the job that I hated nursing (so did my friend), and I was going to look for work doing anything else. At the time even flipping burgers sounded better, more mindless. The fact that you are nervous shows you care and don't want to make mistakes. You are going to make mistakes. NONE of us are perfect. It may look like it on the surface, but after a while, that nurse that acts like she is a gift to nursing will make a mistake in front of you and you will feel just a little better about yourself. You will correctly assess that a patient needed to go to the hospital and after sending them out and finding out that the patient really needed to be sent, you will feel a little better.
In order to feel those feelings, you need to jump in with both feet. Ask questions until your co-workers are pulling their hair out if need be. Arrive early and complete tasks that slow you up during the shift. Do whatever is necessary to help yourself feel better about what you are doing.
Sometimes we don't get the job we want when we are new. I didn't want LTC, but in the town I was in, it was all that was available. I took what I could get and much like you, wanted to quit immediately after training. Now I am glad I stuck with it. I am going into a new and different job in the coming weeks. I am nervous and worried that I won't be able to handle the job, but my previous experience tells me I will succeed if I hang in there, do what I am told, and learn as much as possible.
You will be fine. You got the schooling, which I bet you thought would never end and which I also bet you thought you may not be able to finish, but you did. This is the next step. You can do it and you will :)
Good luck to you, give em hell!
