EnkeliRN

Thank you for the article. It was very informative. My heart goes out to those people that has been affected by Ebola...especially, those doctors, nurses, volunteers, etc who is doing everything to combat the disease are amazing human beings.

My heart goes out to you. Indeed, thank you for sharing your story with us! I feel like I'm in the same situation as most of you are. It's been little over six months since I started working. I know how you feel, keep your head up and good things will come your way. Although my situation might be a lot different than yours, I have been called into my supervisor's office once or twice to be told the mistakes I have made which I'm still learning and growing. I know it kind of breaks your spirit after all that you have done and to be let go of just like that. My strengths are my peers and most of all the many wonderful patients that I meet each and everyday. Most often I hear encouraging words form these patients when they come back again, and at the end of a hard day many of whom say, "Thank you for taking care of me today". That has kept me going until now.

Try to request more orientation time and be honest with your manger/supervisor about your feeling. Even after you're done with orientation and working on your own ask questions, seek help from your peers especially from the seasoned nurses. My advice would be don't listen to all the negative comments without seeing it for yourself first. My on pros/cons of being a float RN doing med/surg tele, oncology, and orthopedics as follows: Pros, you will learn so many things so fast, network with lots of RNs, and you don't have to be sucked into the hospital politics. Cons, you will be assigned hard patients until they get to know you (at least that was my experience), some RNs will be rude, intrusive and judgmental, & you might feel left out/lonely. Best of luck to you :)

Well congratulations for landing your fist job:yeah:. I wouldn't know what to expect on your area. However; I'm also a recently grad (May 09) and I started working as a float RN on Four different units. Boy, I felt so bad that I used to go home and cry every other day. Even though, it's been over six months now since I started. I feel so much better. My advice be hang in there. Remember, you have worked so hard to get to where you're! Keep us updated and there are many people here that will give you wonderful advices, I'm working and browsing at the same time...lol....so, I thought would stop by and give you words of encouragement.

Me too....... Happy New Year everyone :)

duplicate post

Kudos to you for planning to say after all.... :twocents:I'm a new grad with less than 6 month experience and yes, I work as a float nurse. The floors I work on consist of step-down tele/med-surg, urology/med-surg, & oncology. I'm not sure how but my orientation was only five-six weeks long. In all honesty, I have fathomed and looked for jobs around my area very often with my not long wrap sheet of experience. However, the only thing that keeps me going until this day is two things. 1) The words of those few great RNs that I work with echoing in my head, "Give it a time and you'll feel better day by day" and 2) Even if someone decides to hire me how do I know it won't be worst than this one, dealing with preceptor, learning the policy, the culture, etc. On the lighter note ....I used to feel overwhelmed at the beginning & I even shade a few tears coming home. I often worked 14+ hours because of the long list of things that I had to do & I simply didn't have enough time to chart until my shift ended, etc. One thing I did and still do, I ask my colleagues plenty of questions. Thankfully, I work with a lot of great experienced nurses and they're always willing to answer my questions, if they didn't know the answer they help me find the answer. I'm finally learning how to prioritize my time, and many, many things very quickly. Before going to work, I tell myself over and over gain you can do this, even though it might be a different story when I leave from there ... Anyway, many nurses I spoke with, especially in their 1st year felt the same way I'm feeling now. So, I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Btw, I have always wanted to be an RN ever since I was little because I spent numerous times in a hospital setting getting treated for some sort of birth defect problem I had with my arms. PS: Thank you to everyone for sharing your experiences, advises, etc. I learn something new every time when I visit this site.

Kudos to you for mentioning it.... I think it should be a policy all across-the-board

I couldn't have said it any better...yap, that's the reality nowadays

I’m not sure why or who allowed this term to be coined in the medical field “Customers are always right” really, then why not open hospitals every corner. I know some of you will say to me "simply because of competition, etc". We’re not selling goods thou, we’re caregivers! Sometimes it’s really hard to make the families understand that their loved ones are in a hospital setting to get well, so they can move on to their next phase of life. I’ve heard it numerous times in meetings (worded differently) supervisors, CN, etc...pretty much stressing the importance of customer service. Recently, I cared for a ‘frequent flyer’ who comes in always with a vague stomach pain, none other than to seek narcotics. Because he’s a well known “customer”, I mean pt….his doc only ordered morphine IV and few other nausea meds. Initially, the ER had loaded him up with a bunch of narcotics before transferring him to my floor. To make a long story short, he wakes up from his drug-induced coma in the middle of the night, complaining of pain. So, after assessing his pain, I offered to give him morphine. I saw it coming.....he literally started to cry loud, I mean really loud because his physician knows better not to order morphine since it doesn’t work to control his pain (shall I say his urge). I then offered to page his doc….of course he didn’t want to wait then decided to go with the morphine. An hour after I administer the morphine, I get a call from his sister. She was screaming on the phone inquiring why I gave him morphine. I asked if she has a POA over her brother’s care which btw was a 30 year old competent male, of course not. I specifically explained to her that I couldn’t discuss her brother’s care over the phone as it is a violation of HIPAA’s law. Oh boy from there she went on about what a despicable & lousy care we're providing to her brother, blah, and blah. She even threatened me by saying, “Don’t make me come up there!” . So of course after I wasted my time trying explain what happened, I transferred the call to the CN. The CN gets on the phone apologizes and discusses everything what's been done so far to help her brother. I was shocked of course and before I even say a word, the CN states, “Oh btw, I just didn’t want her to come here & create a scene”. I felt really like an ass at first. But, then I know in my heart I did what was right & yes, I did chart pretty much everything. Sometimes though, this is the kind of BS I don’t understand as well.

wow...what a great advice from many of you...keep it going.... :) i'm also a new grad and have been working as a float nurse for about 3 months. i have read some threads where some ppl disagree being a float nurse not a good area to start out with. however, it is what it is.... with the economy and many hospitals on hiring freeze, i took it anyway. i didn't hate nursing at the beginning as much as i hate some of the bs i have to deal with every now and then. the other day i went to work and they sent me up to work on a step down tele/med-surg floor. cn switched one of my pt with another travel rn because she didn't want to care for this pt since she required a lot of work. i was like okay, as if that wasn't enough... i had 4 other total care pts with fall risk, sob, etc... this other pt that i was given had tpn, pca, and two other antibiotics ivbp q4 hrs, and an iv push bp med q6 hrs with a recovery vitals, lab draw in am, etc. on top of all of this, i got two new admits within one hr apart. the second admit suffers from depression and bipolar, which she ended up pulling her iv out. i was like really, if this is nursing i truly hate it . to make matter worse most of the rns were sitting down and joking, i could have swear, i even saw one of them with only 4 pts. so, i decided to go to the cn to ask how many pt each of us had, but she was vague about it. however, at the end of the day i know all of these will help me to be a better rn and perhaps one day i'll find my niche in nursing. my advice to you is get involved with a mentor if you can find someone or find out the place you work has a mentorship program and start writing journals as well. thus far, it has helped me a great deal and i'm also planning to meet with my mentor so that way i can benefit from any advice, etc that he/she can offer me. i pray things will get better for you soon, but never loose hope

I work as float RN on four different floors: Med/Surg, (one on urology and the other a step-down tele), Oncology, and Orthopedics. Mainly primary and some teamwork 6-7 6 Talk to my peers, seek help from tech - CN, and try to calm myself with self talk and deep breath....

Wonderful story....thanks for sharing it :)

Here is my two cents about becoming RN . First of all, I agree with Disco Superfly's comment, "nobody can answer that but you", VERY TRUE! I'm a recent RN grad, and before going to nursing school I worked for one of the top Fortune 500 companies for seven years. However, I always wanted to become a nurse for the same reasons as you have mentioned above: compassion, being a pt. advocate, etc. And, a couple of years ago, I left my job voluntarily to fulfill my dream. I'll tell you, it's probably the hardest thing I have done in my life, even though everybody sees it differently. When I was in school there were so many hoops and loops I had to jump. The school work was very time-consuming, exams were hard, and there were personality clashes among most of the students (not saying with me, but just in general). The class I went to had about fifty students and most of us were bound in the same classroom all day five days a week, doing projects, group presentations, and clinicals, etc. As if that wasn't enough we all had to have at least 78% average in order to pass the course and continue from semester to semester. When I first got my brochure stating that you need to have whatever percentage to pass and stay in the program, I was like, piece of cake, I can do it. NO, it wasn't easy at all. Anyhow, while I was in nursing school, I worked PRN as CNA/CA, and got hands-on experience about the hospital population and types of pt. load. After graduating in May, I took my boards and started working as a float RN because I didn't have many options to choose from in my area. After all the headache and being intimidated about the type of patients I will have to care for every time I go in, I'm now really starting to enjoy it. So, it's really rewarding just to make a difference in someone's life and come home at the end of the day and say I did it. The other day, I got into an argument with a tech who said to me that many of the RNs become nurses just for the money and if it wasn't for the CNAs helping there would be big lawsuits because supposedly some of these nurses have no clue about patient care. In all honesty, I got really offended by her comment, but then again it's the nature of the beast. You got take the bad with the good and keep learning. GOOD LUCK to you in your pursuit of becoming a nurse. PS: Sorry if I wrote too much.....just some info wish I had known beforehand

Congrats, Thank you for your advice, I'm also doing lots of questions to prepare myself for NCLEX..... :)