sunny1230

My orientation was 4 weeks. I did ask a lot of questions in orientation and I have several pages of notes typed for myself. I'm not disorganized or irresponsible. The med error wasn't from not seeing a new order - it was because his home med didn't carry over to visit meds and I didn't even know that was something to look for (he had been admitted the previous day so another shift had already missed the same thing). I do use a brain sheet, the same one I made for myself two years ago and I've been updating it as needed. I know these mistakes are unacceptable which is why I lose sleep over it myself. I don't understand how others with the same education and work experience seem so adjusted and I'm anxiety ridden all the time afraid of making a mistake

Also I forgot to add we're not allowed to be on the unit not clocked in. It might even be a law here bc it was the same at my old job. I wouldn't want to anyway; it's too busy people would be asking for help and I can't put myself in that situation off the clock.

Thanks for your reply. As I mentioned I have applied for pretty much everything. Unfortunately that's not an exaggeration. Also my school requires employment in acute care so leaving the hospital environment is not an option for me. I would love to work for a teaching hospital with more support but after applying a million times to several of these facilities and never even getting an interview, I'm discouraged (to put it lightly). Also, in LA most of the doctors are foreign and while I love diversity they can be extremely difficult to understand. I definitely get worn down from being yelled at.

Let me start by saying I'm not actually a new grad...got my RN license in 2012 after working as an LVN...but I couldn't find a perfect category for this thread...forgive me... I am one of those nurses who feels like school did not prepare me for the reality of being a nurse. I was always a good student, excelled in school, took advanced classes, etc. I was always confident in my intelligence and outgoing personality. That is, until I became a nurse. I have really struggled with nursing. I applied for several hundred jobs after graduating from nursing school. I got a clinic job with no real nursing duties and stuck it out for 7 months until I found a hospital job. I stayed at my first hospital job for one year. It was a good experience in terms of coworkers - most of the nurses were new grads and all around the same age, so I made close friends there. But I felt like the nursing aspect was not good. I consistently found myself in unsafe situations. I live/work in downtown Los Angeles in a bad neighborhood, and most of my patients at that job were coming directly off the streets. People going through withdrawals, people with intense untreated psych issues, horrible wounds, etc. School did not prepare me for any of it. Within my year of working there I was spit on, verbally abused by patients on a daily basis, and had a knife pulled on me by a patient's visitor. Management was pretty awful (in my opinion) and let the new grads struggle without much help. I was in constant fear of legal trouble/losing my license. I finally quit after one of my patients, whom I had already assessed and seemed to be calm and cooperative, ripped an object off the wall and hit another patient in the face (the other patient reportedly refused to give her a cigarette). I got written up and severely reprimanded by management even though it wasn't my fault. I felt like I couldn't deal with that anymore. After going through the application process again (I applied for about 100 jobs this time and only got 3 interviews), I got another hospital job close to my home. It's a much larger hospital with higher acuity patients. I work on the telemetry unit. The first thing I noticed after starting at this job is that the staff are generally unfriendly. Another nurse will help me out if I ask a direct question, but other than that no one talks to me or asks how I'm doing. It feels incredibly lonely. I questioned my decision leaving the other hospital where I had good friends, but ultimately I had to make this decision for the good of my nursing license. Anyways, I oriented for 4 weeks. I felt OK about it. The computer system is very confusing, but the nursing duties are similar to my old job. I thought I was going to be OK. WRONG. I have been on my own for 2 days. I already made a huge med error (did not give a transplant patient Prograf until 6 hours too late because I didn't see it in the confusing eMar), created a discrepancy in the Pyxis on accident which I have NEVER done before (which led to a conversation with my nursing director; as a brand new hire I was mortified), a doctor screamed at me at the nursing station in front of a bunch of people because I misunderstood her verbal order, and the charge nurse approached me because I forgot to chart on two of my IVs (the IVs are charted in a separate MAR which I'm not used to). Anyways, like I said I have only been on my own for 2 days and I feel like I have made so many mistakes, my coworkers probably don't like me, and I have full blown panic attacks after work. I guess I wonder if this is normal. I get that being a new grad is hard but I have experience and I still feel awful, scared, overwhelmed, etc. I went from being a very articulate, smart (in my opinion), confident person to feeling like a complete idiot. I have severe anxiety, I lose sleep over events that happen at work, etc. Ever since graduating nursing school I have wanted to work for a reputable teaching hospital. I apply for EVERY SINGLE NURSING JOB that becomes available in my city. I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with me because I see other people getting these jobs and I don't. I have a good grades, excellent references, job experience, and I'm a FNP student. Still, I don't even get interviews for the kinds of jobs I want. The job experiences I AM getting are tearing me apart, making me feel like nursing was a mistake. Please help. Any advice would be nice.

There are housing fees? Can you tell me where to see that? I would be commuting also

Out of curiosity what was confusing about the acceptance letter?

I got accepted as well but after looking at tuition I decided on CSU Long Beach. Good luck!

Probably :/ it seems like they sent out all the decisions except rejections. If I were you I would ask.

Thanks :) that's ok I'm not surprised since I didn't get in to UCI I figured...but I was put off by the rudeness of the email. Regardless of status we all worked hard on our applications so it would be nice to get some respect...an official letter at least...oh well the future looks good for all of us so no worries

Well, I finally emailed the school and received a rude email response saying "you should have received your rejection several weeks ago, sorry!" Um...ok then! I will be going to CSULB. Congrats to everyone who did get in.

Has anyone else not heard anything? My decision status still says the same thing and no email...thinking about calling the school?

Mine still says "you should soon hear..." Anyone have an idea what that means? Gosh if the deadline is April 25th this isn't fair

Congrats to everyone who got in so far, and for those who are waitlisted, there is hope! Remember UCLA is an expensive program and many people also applied to CSU schools and other UC campuses. So not everyone who was accepted will be enrolling. Still nothing on my end. I was really hoping to get an email today. My status has said "You should soon be hearing directly from your department" since Monday :/

i think it's only because I emailed him first. it sucks they are taking so long because I will have to commit to another school before then...I like to have all my options, so that doesn't seem fair

I emailed Alberto Espejo (sp?) the admissions coordinator a couple weeks ago. He had told me decisions would be sent out mid-April. Then I got an email yesterday saying it will be an additional 2-3 weeks (1st or 2nd week of May!!). I hope that's not the case because at least one program I got accepted into requires intent to enroll by April 30th.