GucciRN22

I DO want to take the CCRN exam sometime...I went to a review recently and it was awsome! ;-)

There's a nurse on our unit who sounds like she's about your age and she just started not too long ago (from a med-surg background) and she's doing great! I say go for it!! :) By-the-way, what's HDU?

:heartbeat:redbeathethanks for the input, it really does help. especially when i feel so down about things. you guys are great!:heartbeat:redbeathe

i was a nurse for about a year and a half before i came to the icu. i felt fine out there (of course after the initial wanting to throw up every night i had to go to work;)) and i wanted something more challenging. i've been in the unit for a little over a year, about 9 months off orientation, and i'm finding myself wondering if it was the wrong choice. i love it, but i'm having a really hard time with the whole big picture and having to think about meds, patho, etc so fast at times. i tend to freeze even if i know what to do. i always second guess myself even when i know i'm right simply because i'm so self-conscious about everything i do. well, not everything, but the stuff that's out of the ordinary. i mean, i've only seen like 2 codes and only had one of them as a patient so i still have minimal experience with that. just because i work there now doesn't mean that i know what to do if something happens ( i mean, besides push the code light and get an airway, while, of course, yelling for help:d). i see all these nurses be so calm and cool about things when they happen and more than anything else i want to be like that. i just wonder if it's taking me too long to adjust....my coworkers don't seem to have a high opinion of me, but when i do a skill (a swan, or something) and then i don't see it again for another 3 months, what am i supposed to do? i ask for help when i need it, but i still come out feeling lame. also, if you couldn't tell, i'm in a whiny mood! lol

i'm not saying that i don't want to work with people who won't report me at all, but to pick things that are serious (and both times with this one nurse it wasn't anything serious). i would totally expect someone to call me out on something that was potentiall lethal, but when i've caught people forgetting to chart or sign their name (or have the wrong fluid hanging, say d5w instead of ns), i give them the benifit of the doubt, let them know that i've changed the bag or let them know about the charting....i don't instantly go to the boss. whatever, i'm just going to have to get used to it for now, i guess, cause it's not going to get better anytime soon. i just wish i didn't work with certain "perfect" people! that being said, everyone else is extremely great to work with and helpful to a fault, so i need to just focus on them because they're truely my saving grace in this unit!:heartbeat

i'm having a huge problem at work because of my chronic migraines. the sick calls are mounting and technically, i'm only allowed 3-4 per year and i passed that a long time ago. fortunately, my boss has been pretty understanding, but it's getting to where i'm gonna be in serious trouble and i don't want that to happen because i love my job and i hate that people may think that i don't like my job enough to be there. does anyone else have this problem and what did you do? i'm on an antisiezure medication for the migraines and it's helped cause i don't get them half as much as i used to, but it's still not good. xoxo

that this is even a problem is stupid! if i don't expect myself to do a task that requires 2+ people, then why on earth would i expect someone else to do it?!? i guess some people don't think before designating tasks....

thanks guys....i guess i should've mentioned that i wasn't a new grad when i started in the icu...i had a little over a year of m/s (plus floating to other units) under my belt, so i guess i figured i'd be better at my job as well las the ups and downs of it all. my mistake! oh well, you all have made me feel a lot better anyway, so thanks for that:heartbeat xoxo

When I was on the floor I'd say about a year, but since I've switched to ICU, I don't really see an end in sight! lol It gets better every time I work though, so that's saying something, I guess.

i actually met with my boss today and told her a few of my concerns and things i wish would get paid more attention to. i mean, i don't want pats on the back for doing my job, but having good things noticed once-in-a-while would be nice. it was a good meeting though cause my boss is actually really nice and supportive. it's just too bad i don't actually work with her instead of some other people i work with! lol anyhoo....thanks for all the good words cause they really helped me feel better about things. :loveya: xoxo

thanks for all the comments....it's just kills me that i let it get to me because that doesn't help me at all. my manager isn't like that at all and most of the other nurses i work with aren't either. i guess i just care too much about the fact that i know that all the nurses talk and they all probably think less of me because of what a few nurses say. i need to get over that, i know. i'm always asking for better ways to do things, cause even if i get the job done, chances are there's a better or more efficient way to do it and i'm all for that! my mom tells me to just remember that those nurses have made mistakes too, but it just irks me that they don't act like it. i've had students and i go out of my way to never be negative to them. even if they ask something silly, i try to realize that they probably know the answer and they're just spaced out by the new atmosphere and gently correct them. god knows i've done the same thing! anyway, bottom line is, i guess i just need to strap on a pair and try harder in everything as well as not letting certain people get to me. it's something else i need to work on! xoxo

i've been off orientation for about 9 months now and it just seems like all that ever gets back to my manager about me is the negative stuff. it's really starting to **** me off because i may not be a great critical care nurse yet, but i've done some good things too! i have family members and patients tell me how nice it's been to have me as their nurse, i've always been on time, i'm always willing to help someone else out if i'm not doing anything, etc, etc. it's just so frustrating that the couple things i've done that are negative are outweighing the good by so much! for example, there's this one nurse i was with during orientation and i didn't have the labels with me when i went in to draw a patients' stat labs, they were right outside the door and after i was done, i got them, checked them with the patient, and i sent them. she was sooooooooo aloof and said that i shouldn't have done that (i know), that i was a critical care nurse now and should start thinking like one. just the way she said it was so annoying....anyhoo, not a week later, i see her doing the same thing with a patient who just had routine labs to be drawn!! i felt like saying something, but i didn't cause i didn't want to give her another reason to not like me. i just wish that all the criticism was constructive and that it was balanced with some good cause that would really help my morale! thanks for letting me vent.

It's always nerve-racking to start a new job and there are always gonna be people who make you feel stupid or not good enough so don't do that to yourself! I mean, I did and still do, but we shouldn't! Just never get to where you think you know everything and always ask questions! Chin up! xoxo

I thought I wanted to do L&D or PP or Nursery. Well, after I graduated I got a job on MedSurg/Onc/Tele and was pretty happy with that but still thought I wanted to do something OB (I love babies!!). Thought I'd ruled out everything but mental health and any form of ICU. Well, I got kinda bored and thought I'd like to give the ICU a shot last year and it's been a year next month and it's been pretty cool! Good thing about nursing is that you can change your mind and try something new if you want (for me, mental health is NEVER happening!) and that's pretty awsome. xoxo

I was a piano performance major who didn't want to be an RN ever, despite what my parents wanted me to do. They knew I wouldn't want to teach it and that's pretty much all you can do unless you want to perform for a living. I tried to do both majors for a year, but 22 credits, working part time, plus concerts, practices, rehersals, etc let me sleep about 4-8 hours a week. Not good. I was delirious half the time.I didn't even being partially enjoying school until OB and then I wasn't sure....then I thought I wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse. Well, that idea went to pot as soon as I graduated for some reason. The only two areas I thought I didn't want to work was mental health (actually, that was an absolute no!!) and ICU. Well I started out in Med/Surg and Oncology which were both tele floors as well and did that for about a year. Then I started taking classes related to sepsis, etc, but a lot of the monitering didn't apply to me on the floor cause I didn't have the monitoring capabilities. So I started getting curious about what they did in ICU and I've been working there now for almost a year now. Bottom line is that you may not want to do nursing, but there are so many options when you get in that most people find something they like to do. And you're lucky to have a job now anyway! I understand it must be scarey for you starting a job at this point, but it would've been scarey right out of school too, right? Best of luck!

Obviously, Critical Care is complicated, but when I float out to MedSurg, Oncology, or any other floor for that matter, I find that I rely a lot on all the monitoring we have in the ICU. It's not that you don't watch the patient too, but when you're on the floor, you have a lot less control and you can't just do an EKG if it's not ordered (of course I've NEVER done one without an order:D), draw labs, etc. I feel like doctors listen to me more when I call from the ICU vs. when I call from the floor and it's infuriating. There are good things and not so good things about both, but that's why I float to other units when I can. That way when our census in ICU is low, I can work anyway and be comfortable on other units (plus, I get to see my old homies!). Don't despair....there's positives no matter how you look at it! :) xoxo

omg, thank you for posting this!!!! i worked on the floor for 13(ish) months before coming to the icu, but i still have those sick feelings most days and i've been there almost a year. it's usually never as bad as i think it will be and most of the time i feel like i'm waiting for someone to call me out and tell me to stop pretending to be a critical care nurse. in fact, most days i don't even want to go to work because just thinking about it drains me. however, most of the people i work with are great/very helpful and that helps a lot. i'm just glad i'm not the only one taking a long time to adjust!:redbeathe

a lot of the nurses in my icu have that opinion of the trauma neuro icu nurses and i don't know why. i guess they assume that people are always in the prime of life with no other problems when they get into accidents, etc and that their issues are more easily fixed. i don't buy that for a second cause from where i see it, there's a huge difference between what they do and what we do (most of the time--when we're not sharing pts via overflow rules, etc). i've never cared much for neuro stuff and i don't know if it's cause i'm not comfortable with it or because i don't like it, but that's the way it is. i mean, i don't know how to do icp monitoring and stuff, but i'm glad there's a unit that specializes in that at our facility! i hate it when the floors badmouth each other cause it's bad for the teamwork aspect of the job. i've floated up to the trauma unit before and i like it cause they typically give us the easiest patients (i heard one of the icu nurses a long time ago accidentally hooked up a ventriculostomy to suction and they've never viewed us the same way since!!) and i got to learn about more of the stuff they do up there.

i heart a-lines!!

i was lucky cause our med/surg unit is also a mixed tele unit so we were all acls certified soon after orientation. i also floated to oncology a lot (honestly, i was there more than my own floor, i liked it so much!!). i was there for about 13 months before i transfered to the icu and now i've been there a year in november. honestly, i still am nervous going to work (not the pleasant nervous, either) and even more so if i've had a bad shift or something, but it's getting a lot better. some of my friends haven't had that problem at all, but i personally am not a person who adjusts to things quickly (for better or for worse) so it's taking me longer. i like it so far and i'd say my floor experience really helped me out. i still float to other floors when i can (it's a nice break!) too so i don't forget how to do things out there with more than 2 patients. plus, it's a good way to meet other people you may be transferring patients to/from in the future!

Yup, still sick sometimes! :) But now it's usually only after I've been off for more than like 5 days or if I had a really crappy shift the last time I worked.

That story weirded me out...how irresponsible for those around him!

i just looked at job openings at a hospital that has three icus: a cardiovascular icu, a coronary icu, and a regular icu. why do they have a coronay and a cardiovascular icu? are they different? again, i'm sorry if this makes me sounds stupid. my hospital only has one icu and our major heart stuff goes downtown to a sister hospital (which kinda sucks cause seeing more of that would be interesting!) so i was just wondering.

god, that was so frustrating!!!! i always had people cheating in one nursing class or another. my friend was the one who actually saw them (always the same people), but she never said anything. if i had seen them, i probably would have said something because it made me so livid, but if the teacher didn't see it, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. very frustrating.....

don't the drug books say to dilute some narcotics/opiates as well? i'm getting confused.... i've always done it this way.