VenaKavaRN

I'm glad you're having a good experience! I'm also a new grad and am loving my unit, but being a new RN is just tough sometimes. I find the First Year in Nursing forum helpful for those moments, just in case you didn't know about it :) Happy Nursing!

Get everything in writing in the future from this manager! E-mail if you can, make her sign something if you can't. Not to be trusted!

Well, considering a couple letters sometimes means the difference between one drug and another very different drug, I think spelling drug names, if nothing else, is vitally imporant. HOWEVER, I get that this is a discussion board, not a hospital, so I understand it might have seemed a little overbearing to have your spelling corrected here. But if you spell it right here and elsewhere, you'll spell it right when it counts.

No such thing as hypernutremia. I'm guessing hypernatremia is the diagnosis. What are the patient's sodium levels? If they are high, you have your answer for sure. Think about what the word means: Hyper(too much) nutr(food/nutrition) emia(in blood). Does it make sense to have too much nutrition in the blood? Not really.

First of all, congratulations!! Secondly, you might want to consider contacting the nursing deptartment to see if you can set up a meeting with the dean or one of the instructors to go over the material with you since you didn't get a chance to go to the orientation. I believe they'll accomodate you, orientations are important, especially the first one. Make sure you get any and all questions answered so you're not behind the rest of the class. I was really stressed when I had the materials but hadn't gone to orientation yet, but it felt a LOT more manageable once I'd been. Hope that helps!

I think that, to a point, compassion and empathy are things that can also be learned along with the theory. I think that an important part of the clinical experience we get in nursing school is that we get to put faces with all these disorders that we're learning and see the effects they have on the patients. It's not just COPD anymore, it's 'Ms. Soandso that I taught pursed-lip breathing to because she was having a hard time'. I'll admit, I started out as a CNA 4 years ago as one of those '4.0 in school but totally retarded in social situations' people. Going into a patient's room would make me break out in a cold sweat because I had no idea what to say to them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not any kind of 'supernurse' now, but I like to think I've gotten better at just talking with patients and interacting better with them. I know if I ask them about kids or grandkids, we can get a good conversation going. I know when I can banter and play with them a little and when I need to be more serious. I also feel a lot more comfortable now. This has all come with hands-on experience and I have learned it, I certainly wasn't born with it. I think that nursing schools, like others have said, can't measure objectively the more qualitative qualities about what makes a 'good' nurse, so they have to go with numbers. I also think that if a person has worked hard enough to maintain good grades in the prerequisities, they at least have some inkling that nursing is competitive and have worked hard to secure themselves a spot. They may not be compassionate and empathetic when they start that first semester, but they can learn to be through the guidance of peers and instructors.

I've worked as a CNA in two different nursing homes, and now have been working for 3 years in a hospital. There is a world of difference. I'm not sure what it is, but in my experience nursing homes just aren't for everyone. And I'm not one of the people that thrives working in one. In a nursing home, it's the same people with the same problems and hard, heavy work day after day. This can also make your coworkers a little unhappy (which it sounds like you're encountering). In a hospital, your patients change frequently so at least you're always seeing something new (and you know that eventually that mean old lady will leave, which makes it easier to be polite to her). It depends on the floor, but I think the actual workload is more intellectual for a CNA rather than physical. Yes, there are still messes to clean up and baths to give, but it's not nearly the heavy lifting that a nursing home is. I've learned so much more about different conditions and diagnoses working in a hospital than I ever did in the nursing home. You might want to try switching to a different place to work - it sounds like you feel a lot like me about nursing homes. As to the 'scurvy' nurses - you will probably find some of these everywhere. But the ratio (in my limited experience) seems to be more favorable in a hospital setting, although this will vary by what unit you're on. Give it a try - and do what a previous poster said and think really hard about what you don't like as a CNA and if that will still be there when you graduate.

I'm sorry you're having a bad time I think previous poster is right: just take things one day at a time and you'll make it through in no time. Are you 100% sure you can jump right back in at the end of a year? For my program you'd have to go back on a 2+year waiting list. That's time it doesn't sound like you have right now. Plus, who knows if you'll make it back at all? Things have a habit of cropping up and usually it's school that gets postponed. It sounds like you need to do something to make you feel good about yourself, that makes your position in the world better. I'd stick with it as long as you can.

I appreciate that you have a busy life outside of work. But do you really need to be on your cell phone right now talking about what soandso said to soandso? I think the last HOUR you were on the phone should have been enough. Oh, and stop looking at me like I'M wasting YOUR time and eavesdropping on purpose. You're the professional here. Act like it and do your job!

"Please, for the love of all that is holy, go home and take a BATH!" "It makes me want to vomit when I see your barefoot kids running around on this nasty carpet." "About those barefoot kids, could you possibly take them somewhere else so they don't almost trip the staff who are trying to work?" "Newborns just don't belong in a hospital visiting grandma with MRSA. I really want to report you for endangerment." "No, you may not bring 30 of your closest family members and decimate our patient snack supplies. Go home."

The amount of excrement is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have to clean it up.

I have a 5-week dry-erase board calendar I use. I get overwhelmed when I think of more than 5 weeks at a time, so it's really all I need to get by. I just erase the week completed, get my syllabi out and put in the necessary information on a rolling basis. It's also really easy to update for those inevitable schedule changes and additions.

I would speak to the clinical instructor as far in advance as you possibly can. It may be possible for you to piggyback on another group for a day to make up the hours. You'll never know until you ask, and most clinical instructors will work with you as long as you are proactive about it. Let us know how it goes!

What are you being told to chart? If it's vital signs or intake and ouptut, objective stuff like that, then I'd see no problem with a nursing student doing it. It's if you're being told to do nurse's notes I'd be a little concerned. If you're being encouraged to do the nurse's notes, make sure the primary nurse reads over it to make sure you got everything she wants on there. Unless you're the only one in there and the patient is for sure not breathing or has a pulse, get the patient's primary nurse first before you call a code. Since it's a telemetry floor, I'd reckon there's 3-4 people watching that patient's heart rhythm at all times, and they'd know when something was going wrong in that department. If you think the patient's doing downhill fast, stay with them until the nurse comes, and if they go into respiratory arrest, then call the code. The only code I've seen was when a patient went into cardiac arrest on the toilet I just stood waay back when the code was called, since people were running down the hall with a crash cart. Just stand close by outside the door, ready to get anything they say they need - towels, suction, epi, whatever.

I get mine through a program my university has. It's $15 for a year, but I assume that's a special rate. You might call the nursing office and see if they can give you any suggestions on who most of the students use or if there's one they prefer. I think this is par for the course in nursing school because you're actually going to be practicing in a real hospital on real people. Not only does the hospital have to cover themselves in case (god forbid) something happens, but also the university has to cover themselves.