barlowjb

WORD OF ADVICE: When I first started my nursing career, I met another new nurse who was only one month into her nursing career. She told me and practically everyone else that she knew she was in the wrong filed because she absolutely hated her patients and like you, found them to be very annoying and whiny. She kept saying she could not stand them. She even went as far as to say she felt no compassion at all for them and felt that nursing was not the career for her because of how she felt. So not long after, she began studying for her LSAT because she decided that she wanted to become a lawyer. 15 months later she passed her LSAT exam and got accepted into a number of Law Schools. She then decided to defer Law school acceptance just for a little while, so she could work a little more and save some money. In the meanwhile she decided to temporarily switch her nursing Job and work with a totally different patient population, with the intention to only work there for one year, then attend Law School. She took a slight pay cut with this new nursing Job Well Guess what? After only one week in her new nursing Job, she was very surprised to find that she absolutely loved it. I was shocked too. Now almost 6 months later, she loves her new nursing Job (no on call, no weekends, no being called off due to low census, no floating all the time, patients who are very appreciative, and a boss who shows appreciation for all his employees). Almost 6 months later, she feels the same way and she is now seriously rethinking Law School, and is considering a permanent career in nursing. My point - The next time you feel frustrated and angry at the population of patients that you work with and feel you have no compassion for them etc. Think again and don't be oot quick to think you are in the wrong field. It may be that your personality is just not the right fit for the patient population you now work with among other things. Meanwhile, I'm still working in Med/Surg, where my co-worker left me, and I truly love my Job and the patients, despite their whining. I don't mind floating to their units, because I view it as a challenge. I don't mind being put on call simply because I just happen to be able to afford it (Thank God). This job just happens, to be a right fit for me and my personality at this stage of my life (I don't know about later on). Do I have bad days? - You bet I do!!!, Do I get a little irritated at patients at times? - Definitely!!! If I get burnt out or start having more issues than I can handle, I will think of trying something different. But for right now, I love my Job and I am happy that my co-worker found a nursing Job that's right for her. So If you haven't done so already, give yourself a chance to try other areas of nursing. I wish you the very best, regardless of what you chose to do.

Once I had a pt who for three consecutive days at dinner time had BS between 60 and 70 and had and order for both scheduled and sliding scale Humulin. The first two days I called the MD she said hold the scheduled dinner time insulin. On the third day I told her that this was becoming a trend and suggested for her to give me some parameters so I wouldn't have to keep calling her about the same thing everyday at dinner time, so she said hold all scheduled regular insulin for BS LiKwonie, I noticed you said "I know she is going to bottom out like she usually does the next morning" one of my peers suggested to me the other day that If I noticed a trend to either call the MD or leave a note detailing the trend and suggest an adjustment be made to the insulin regimen. Making a decision to call an MD about holding a med is also a part of critical thinking. I think a lot of these issues are common sense and because of that some nurses (and I have been guilty of this in the past) make those "final" decisions to hold meds especially because quite frankly a few MDs make us feel bad about calling about "simple medications issues that "could have been dealt with in the morning". I have been told on more than one occasion by my charge nurses not to be afraid of calling MDs (even if its in the middle of the night) about holding meds - if parameters were not previously given. You did what a lot of nurses have done and still continue to do and get away with, but we have to always be mindful of the limits of our scope of practice - You were on the right track in terms of wanting to hold the med, the mistake you made was in not contacting the MD about the matter. I'm sorry that it had to get to the point of you being written up. However, while some supervisors may be more lenient than others (via verbal warnings), based on your description of the situation I cannot in good conscience say your supervisor did anything wrong. Although it hurts, think of this as a lesson learned. "This Too Shall Pass"

I never before thought that this could be an issue. The facility that I work at doesn't have the policy of checking placement of patches, and there have been several times when I have had an order to remove a patch and when I check the pt and bed there was no patch to remove. In those situation I generally record something like "no patch observed on pt" - do you think that is sufficient documentation on my part?

it was great having another new nurse around, we both shared similar fears and concerns and ended up supporting each other

Not sure of your situation, but my first week of four days of orientation was in a class room no where close to my unit and half of my 5th day was spent touring the facility and my assigned unit and during that first week I was considered an employee (as reflected by my pay check). If they consider today an orientation for you, i would think you are officially an employee Hope that helps Congrats also!!!

I agree. so far 98% of the time when I ask more experienced nurses to start IVs on "hard stick" patients, they can't do it either, plus there are times when they ask me for help with their IV starts - so that tells me that I'm not the only one having a difficult time with IV starts at times. Try not to appear too nervous (even if you are) because pt's pick up a lot on that. Like the above post said try to start every IV you can - in this way you will continue to get a feel of it and hopefully reach a fair comfort level. Reading may give you tips, but nothing builds confidence and technique/skills like hands on experience.

Try hanging in there a little longer maybe say an additional month and see how you feel. When I first started (ortho/neuro and general medical) I felt unsure of a lot of things and documentation took forever. I began feeling a tad bit ok after 8 weeks of orientation, fairly ok after 4 months and now that i'm at the 6 month mark i'm feeling pretty good although I still have a lot to learn. The first few weeks as a new nurse is tough for most, plus working 12 hour shift does not make it any easier. I don't know whether or not you will still feel the same way after an additional month or two, but at least give yourself an opportunity to find out. For me the biggest hurdle was getting comfortable with the other nurses. I had to develop a very tough skin very fast and practicing to not take certain things and attitudes toward me personally was the best thing I ever did for myself. There were times I would just go home and pray for God to help me deal with certain individuals regardless of how stupid I felt around them, then I would just buck up and face another day again. The irony of it all is that now i feel pretty comfortable with most of the other nurses - who knew?. I am aware that sometimes there are places that are really just bad and dangerous places to work no matter the situation, and but based on the info you posted, I would encourage you to give yourself a little more time before you make your final decision. I wish you all the best regardless of the direction you eventually decide to take May God Bless your efforts much sooner than you think or expect!!! Best Wishes

Don't be too hard on yourself, just keep on trying. I wish you all the best

well said!!!

When i mentioned "taking on slack" I didn't say "always take on slack", slack was probably not the right word choice for me, what I was trying to say is when it comes to team work - and lets look particularly at nursing school - if you have one team mate who is not pulling his/her weight (even if its your first time working with this person), you should step in and do something, to ensure that you end up with a decent grade. The point I really wanted to drive home is this: complain after whatever you have to do is over OR if its really bad find a way to address the matter with the professor if the matter is causing that much problems, but in the meantime if I was a part of that team, my grade is at stake, and there is no way on God's green earth that I am going to sit by and allow one lousy team member to cause me to get a bad grade or fail a course. In any case it just dawned on me that my perspective may be related to my NS approach to group projects - At the end of our group projects etc, the professors included 20 points for team work. 10 of those points were based on evaluation of each person by the other members of the team. These evals were anonymous, so in the end, if your team mates thought you sucked, you can get say 0 or 1-2 points. The second 10 points based how much work each team member contributed. so in the end all members got the same number of points out of that 80% bulk, but the remaining 20% varied for each person, to make up their final grade. With this approach on the same team there may be a mixture of students with a final grade of passing and others with a final grade of failing. I don't know if all nursing schools do this but if they don't it may be a good suggestion to combat the problem of people not pulling their weight. I'm not trying to say I'm right or wrong about anything, its just an opinion Best Wishes

i smiled when i read the op's above statement because it reminded me of a quote from the literature book in high school written by author george orwell's titled: animal farm which says "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" my spin on this quote is that all individuals in a team may be workers but some may end up working harder than others. anyways, before i go any further, let me say this to the op: from a personal standpoint i understand your frustration and you have every right to vent. thanks for your post because reading it reminds me that there will always be people like the ones you complained about and that i will always have to practice navigating wisely around them for the benefit of patients and myself. however i do have some general comments or food for thought if you will, targeted at no one in particular. the same opinion i have right now, is absolutely the same opinion i had in nursing school. many of the things that happen in nursing school as unfair as it may be also happen in the real world of nursing. when working as part of a team pretend for a moment that you are in the real world of nursing where it should be all about the patient and not about how you feel about the fellow nurses around you. picture this: you are assigned 8 patients on a busy med surg unit and your fellow nurse is assigned only 5 patients and it's an extremely hectic horrible next to impossible night. in an instance one of your team mate's 5 patients is crashing and she/he is either in shock or just plain and simple incompetent to handle the situation. what would you do? would you play blind because it's not your patient, you have more than your fair share to deal with and you "can't find the time" to help a dying patient (who god forbid could have been a family member) who has an incompetent nurse? or would you simply jump in and take over, help save the patient's life, complete your shift and report your team mate's incompetence to management later? also picture this, if for this class the grade meant the difference between remaining in nursing school or being kicked out, would you "refuse to take on the responsibility of your team mate" because it's not fair", at the risk of receiving a low grade and getting kicked out of school or would you simply pick up your team mate's slack regardless of how upset you may be to ensure that you get the grade you need -- and then report him/her to the professor after you have received a passing grade? the whole point of teamwork is working together for a common good. some team mates may be stronger in some areas than others, some may be plain incompetent, but the important thing is to not lose sight of that common goal no matter what. if during the time one team member is putting a patient's life in danger (in a work situation) or refuses to partake in team projects, or is just not pulling his/her weight one can document examples of the problem and make a report immediately or later depending on the situation. someone pointed out that we pay nursing school to teach us, a statement which i totally agree with, but we have to remember that that teaching also involves how to participate in team work and wisely handling the problems that arise from the very nature of being part of a team. as for the instructor showing favoritism - it happens all the time even on the job with charge nurses and regular staff - but that's for a whole "nother" post. i'm not suggesting that the op should bend over backward and not say or do anything, but we have to remember that there is a time, place and best way to handle any given situation. i strongly believe that it is important to practice putting things in perspective and think things through before making the decision to act or not to act - because at the end of the day you don't want to harm the patient (because of inaction) or harm yourself (getting a bad grade or potentially putting your nursing license in danger when you become a real nurse). best wishes

This is the reason why I love the allnurses website: u see and hear stuff you probably you would not know of elsewhere - it is such a cool video!!!

I already have a bachelors and masters in Biology and most people expected me to either attend medical school or pursue a PHD. I was told by family and friends that doing nursing was like going "backwards" that nurses were just "wound dressers" and that I could do "better than that". It was a very frustrating period for me because I had done my research and knew that the people who were making these comments were plain and simply ignorant and had little to no knowledge of what nursing entailed. I spent a great deal of time trying to explain to people the different things that nurses did and why it was such a great profession to be in. Eventually I literally stopped talking about it, it was no longer a topic of discussion with people who did not know what they were talking about. I also volunteered in the ER (initially out of boredom, because I had a lot of time after work and did not have a boyfriend), an experience which sealed the deal 100% for me, I knew I wanted to do this. Its Your decision to make, its you who has to look in the mirror and ask yourself am I satisfied and comfortable with what I am doing career-wise. If you are not satisfied with what you are doing, you are going to continue being miserable and may even become depressed about it. I don't know what your mother's motive is and I don't want to speculate, in any case the bottom line is that that is her issue that she has to work out. Keep on loving her, Keep on being respectful of her (you may need her help with your child while you are in school), let her know you understand and appreciate her concern, try not take it too personally or be angry at her, avoid discussing it with her for a while, go ahead and apply to nursing school. Seek people out who can encourage you. Your mom may eventually warm up to the idea and may even express how proud she is of you on your graduation day, like my mother and most of my friends and family eventually did. Best Wishes

Ahh, that definitely illegal.

:smackingf OMG, Sorry for the long post above, I am working on being shorter and to the point in the things I want to say, but sometimes when I am writing in the moment I don't realize how long the post is until after I have posted it. My apologies again and I hope I didn't annoy anyone with such a long post.