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I have been a nurse 14 yrs, in all settings, hospital, home care, utilization, insurance case mgmt. I currently do telemetry nursing. I feel bad that you are so miserable. There are a lot of anxiety producing elements for you: Hospital setting (Everybody's anxious and it's contagious), sick, sick patients, juggling technical skills, building a clinical foundation and finding the right care priorities for your patients are by no mean easy tasks. You sound like a really good, conscientious nurse and I would hate to see you walk away from it. We need you. I can really relate to the anxiety. I still felt very anxious in my second year and still do, at times. Until you come up with a plan may I suggest a few things that may make your current job easier. First and formost if your health is being affected, maybe you need a short medical leave to rest, recharge and regroup. If this is not an option, here are some suggestions: Buddy up with nurses you trust and ask them for help when you need it (It's been a very valuable lesson for me to learn how to ask for help from other nurses. I can be comfortable in the fact that I'm not expected to know every chapter of the nursing book and how every piece of equipment operates and all signs and syptoms of all pathologies. I'm only human and so are the people I work with. I am the first one to ask some really "stupid" questions whose answers increase my knowledge and reduce my anxiety. Try to clarify what specifically is causing the anxiety, make a list if you have to: New technical skills, contact with patients and families, contact with rude docs, or worse, disinterested ones, learning the systems structure of a hospital and who actually does what (took me a long time to learn who gets called when). When you are at work and you just can't take a certain pt. or family or lab draw or bm cleanup anymore, try and trade tasks with some other nurses you trust. (It really helps to have someone else do something that you are just totally sick of doing and that person usually feels the same way about some task they don't feel like doing). Find people at work to talk to privately about your feelings so they can help you relax, (by helping you feel supported in an extremely difficult occupation at a very stressful time in the health care industry (not enough staff, beds, money, linen or glucerna). You have the great option of working anywhere in health care, but, believe me, whether you're on the phone, or in the home or at the hospital, nursing can be stressful so I think the anxiety you are feeling is part of your professional development, as you are recognizing the complexities of human interaction and the general chaos of the health care system. I wish you the best of luck, hope anything I said helps.

Hi everyone, I'm Diana from Michigan. I've been a nurse 13 years and this is the first time I've had this problem. My hands are breaking out with small raised red itchy bumps between the knuckles. I think it might be the alcohol sanitizer. I try not to use it but sometimes the water in the patient's room doesn't get hot or there's too much equipment to get to the bathroom. I have stopped using the sanitizer but don't know what to do for my hands. I don't know if it's eczema, or an allergic reaction. I don't think it's latex. I've never had a problem with it before. I have been drying my hands thoroughly after each washing, using hand lotion and wearing gloves outside. I've tried antibacterial ointment, hydrocortizone cream. What can I do? They are getting worse and I'm stressed about doing patient care with broken skin on my hands. Advise me please, thanks.