Thank you all for the great advice.
A little update:
i'm 6 months into working on the BMT unit, and my heart still pounds whenever the charge nurse writes the patient assignments on the whiteboard -gulp!
the problem is, during my month-long orientation, i was so focused on learning all these new nursing skills that all the important info that was bmt focused flew straight over my head, so i'm still playing "catch up"....
I do fine with patients post bmt, managing symptoms and juggling AB regimens, but pre-transplant i really dread- back to back chemo - I never get comfortable with that.
Another problem is the day shift. My hospital works in 8hours shifts so the 7-15 shift is when most of the chemo and bloodwork is done- I HATE that shift! There is a ton of insanely pressurized work, worst pay--- in all i feel like i've been run over by a truck by the end of the shift.
For some weird reason our unit is really low on transplant patients at the moment so our pt:rn ratio is waaaay off. So every so often our nurses are being floated elsewhere (mostly hem/onco)- tonight i was sent to hematology as a float nurse- I was super stressed all night! I almost missed the last bus home!
And did i mention the kids? Our unit usually has 2 kids (5yrs and up) receiving a transplant- i really hate working with kids for a number of reasons, but the main thing is just the medicine safety issue- the doasages are different, less fluids going in- and when they crash- they do it in spectacular fashion.
Oh, and not to mention that the language most spoken is arabic or russian- which i am not fluent in? (Arabic is easier to pick up than Russian though)
I still don't know if this is the specialty i want to work in, at the moment what really keeps me going is the great staff that i work with- 100% willing to help even when they're super busy.
