Chelle79

ConfusedRN....You sound so much like me that I have to tell you, reading your message gave me a slight sign of relief. It wasn't long ago that I myself posted a message on this site asking for advice just like you. I graduated from nursing school last May and put off finding a job because I was full term pregnant at that time. I finally started my career in November (yes JUST 6 months ago). Everyday I would drive to work and my stomach would just be turning in knots and I would feel so nauseated. There were days I would leave work and the moment I got to my car I would just start crying and continue crying until I got home (mind you I work 40 minutes away). I hated every aspect of my job and I never wanted to return. I would search the newspaper everyday for something better, perhaps a doctors office. I had worked in a doctors office for 5 yrs as a medical assistant and was so use to having that quality time with my patients. I got to my med-surg unit and I felt like I was robbing my patients of that time. We can hold up to 40 patients on our floor and I have had as many as 8 at a time....talk about pulling out my hair. On top of that I stressed over the fact that 5 of those beds are specifically for prisoners who are serving life sentences for murder. My stomach turned just walking into those rooms knowing that at any moment anything could happen regardless whether there was a guard standing there or not. Needless to say, I AM STILL in my same position and I have to tell you it HAS gotten much better. I ask a TON of questions still and there are times I can't get my IV's started and I have to ask someone else to try for me, but than I remind myself that everyone started out where I am and if I just give up I will never get to where they are. I have been offered a job in a psych unit where I won't necessarily have to deal with all these complicated skills daily but after 6 months I have decided that I don't want to lose these skills I am learning on a daily basis. Hang in there because I know EXACTLY how you are feeling. I would always tell myself just get to the next month. When I hit my 6 month mark I started to panic because I can now get pulled to other units and the first time they pulled me they sent me to CCU of all places. But I got through it and you will find that MOST nurses will help you out and walk you through things. And for those who don't they can be a good reminder of how you DON'T want to me when you are well on your way and someone needs YOUR help. :) Take a deep breath each and every day, tell yourself that you are only ONE person and can only do so much in your 12 hour shift, and you are part of a TEAM!!!

I think you did say alot when you mention not feeling confident. I have told them many times that I feel completely incompetent. I do feel like a lousy nurse because I don't feel like there is time to care for the patients the way I want to. If I wanted to be a pill pusher and nothing more I woul have saved my money I invested in school. Know what I mean? I enjoy helping the aides when I have time because that's when I feel like I am really giving care. When I am home I can sit and calmly go through the events of the day and it doesn't seem so bad but it never goes smoothly at work. I like being busy but not so busy that you can't think straight and you feel like your license is hanging by a string. Perhaps I am use to the environment of a doctors office and just prefer that setting. Perhaps a hospital setting is not for everyone.

Hello Everyone! I am in need of some advice. I recently started a job on a med-surg unit (early November). I was so excited when I received the phone call for an interview and even more excited when I got the job. However, here I am three months later DREADING going to work everyday. A little background to this story....for starters my orientation got cut short and I was thrown on my own long before I felt I was ready however, they all felt that I was plenty ready so there I was. I make a 40 minute drive into a place I dread going to EVERYDAY which makes it that much worse. Our floor is a combination of med-surg/pediatrics although we don't get a whole lot of peds. It is a small town community hospital and for the most part staff has been great with me. I LOVE taking care of people and being able to sit and spend time with them. I worked for five years in a doctors office as a medical assistant and although it had its moments, I did enjoy it. I hate to say it, but I think I hate my job. It is definately not what I thought it would be. I have spent moments in absolute tears knowing I had to leave to go into work and have even had moments at work where I just needed to stop and go on my own to cry. Is that crazy??? I don't know exactly what it is about this job that has me in such chaos but my insides get so twisted up before my feet even enter the doorway. I stress out completely before I even know my assignment for the day. Not only does it make for a rough work day but it also makes for a rough family life. I come home and can't get work out of the mind. I can no longer enjoy my off days even because I am dreading having to go to work the following day. And I just don't know why I feel this badly. I have been beating myself up over this because I am not the type of person to give up but I just can't handle much more. It has gotten to the point where I am not even sure if I want to be a nurse after all that time spent in school. Is it nursing I dislike or just my current job???? I am miserable at work and therefore at home. I want to be able to come home and enjoy my time with my children, etc not feel like the world has come to an end every single day. I feel so trapped in this job because it seems there are not alot of openings out there and I need to work so I can have insurance, etc. Does anyone out there have any advice or has anyone ever felt quite the way I do and what did you do about it? I did go in yesterday and tell my manager I was giving a notice but the girls on the floor do a good job of talking me out of it. THe aides don't want to see me go becuase they tell me I am the only nurse on the floor who ever offers to even help them out when needed, etc. I don't mind helping anyone but it seems that not everyone is like that. Anyway...please offer up some advice if you have any. I have to leave for work soon and I am already literally sick to the stomach. Thanks!

Congratulations!! :) So happy you got through it and never gave up.

You are quite welcome :). Glad I could help.

Courtney....Sorry to hear you failed. How about a study partner??? How have you been studying for it???

If you go to www.rnreportcard.com it is a site that you can actually order these neat report sheets for on the floor. But if you click on view whats inside there is actually two pages worth of lab values. U can click to enlarge and see all of them :) Hope that helps.

Tn....LOL.....What the heck, you can give it a try and see if it works. I too had never thought that they would tell someone they needed to gain weight in order to get health insurance. At the time I was not sure how they calculated their rates, etc. But based on what I had been told prior to my insurance, things had sure changed. When my BMI is calculated, I do fall just under 18 but I am healthy and I eat like you wouldn't believe...LOL.

I had to have one a few yrs back and it's really nothing. Like others stated, she just checked vitals, height & weight, and also took some blood. Rather simple. I too...really healthy, no problems. So I was shocked when they called and told me I was being denied but they couldn't tell me why until someone else called me. I called back repeatedly trying to reach the person I needed to speak with and than worried ALL weekend that something was terribly wrong with me and I had not known about it. I finally got in touch with the lady at my insurance company and told her that I wanted her to attempt to find out the reasoning if she could, etc. Can you believe I was being denied because they said I was underweight??? Talk about angry!! I had been small my whole life but was completely healthy. So if I were over weight, and stood a greater risk of health problems than that would be okay???? Needless to say, I got to the bottom of it and I was insured in the end for the lower price even. Anyway.....again, rather simple. Sorry...had to vent. Sometimes these companies really irritate me.

Hi Toyia......Not sure how helpful I will be for you, but give it a try. By reading your post I was somewhat confused. There are a number of things and places you can work however, generally speaking you would probably be working in a hospital or perhaps even a doctors office. When you talk about working from the home...are you referring to being a midwife?? I have never heard of Maternity Nurses being on 24 hour call before but I could be wrong. As a midwife, I can see that happening. I too, took a strong liking to the maternity ward as a nursing student and had high hopes of falling into a job straight from school. However, it is not the way things usually go. Most times they want you to have some sort of experience already or some time spent on a med-surg floor which is where I ended up. You will get LOTS of experience by being a med-surg nurse first and than going into a field of specialty. I hope that it helps somewhat. I wish you the best of luck with school and your future.

Robin, If you are talking in terms of nursing school, lab time at school is generally spent learning the skills you will need to learn to properly care for your patients. For instance, they will teach you how to do dressings, catheterizations, feeding tubes, wound care, etc. Clinical time is the time you will spend on a hospital unit. I am not sure how it will work for you but when I was a nursing student, we spent one day at the hospital during my first yr and two days there during my second year. This is where you will be under the guidance of an experienced RN learning how to out the skills you learned in lab to good use. Good Luck with your schooling and your future nursing career. I hope that it is rewarding for you.

Hang in there! You didn't get through nursing school for no reason. The NCLEX is not an easy test by no means. I studied my butt off but the stress of just having to go sit for it made me forget things too as I sat down to take it. I am thankful that I passed and you will do so too. You are not the first person to have to retake it and I am CERTAIN you won't be the last either. Don't lose your confidence or everything you have worked so hard for. Keep us posted with your results. And Good Luck!!

Try not to stress too much. These are all standard things which are asked of everyone who enters the medical field. Having a false positive result will not keep you from being able to work in the field or obtainging a license jerrynuevo. In fact, I am proof of that. I actually had TB as a child and now carry false positives and will continue to. Therefore, I am not permitted to have the TB testing. They simply send me for chest x-rays yearly to be sure it's not active. Good Luck with everything!!

Is it the sight of it or mainly the smells that seem to be bothering you?