foreverastudent8

First off, newone09 & Allthesmallthings - thank you for your posts! As I was reading them, I couldn't help but feel a huge sense of relief because everything YOU are feeling, I am feeling. I'm also at my 6 month mark and I actually came on to this forum hoping for some inspiration/advice because all afternoon I've been beating myself up over something my manager brought up to me last night - apparently I had not initiated a standing protocol order and she needed an explanation of what happened and why it wasn't started (which, in my defense, I had talked to my charge nurse about since I was not sure what to do in the situation and I followed everything she had told me). My manager initially began the convo with "you're not in trouble... I just need to know what happened" but I, of course, took the whole conversation to heart. This isn't the 1st time she has had to talk to me about something (thankfully, like in your situation, nothing disastrous has resulted from my mistakes) and I rationally can tell myself that it will not be my last, but I'm just feeling down on myself for having made these mistakes. I'm also a bit frustrated at this point because it seems like my units policies/procedures are not being practiced or even made aware of across the board - more than once, seasoned nurses have told me how to do something or have themselves done it and I knew that it wasn't correct p/p. Since I'm still the by-the-books-new-nurse, I find that I sometimes find it difficult to know what to do or who to listen to in situations that I know don't have a specific p/p for me to review 1st. Since I obviously am having a hard time dealing with the whole "don't take work things home with you," I think I'm going to try and take some of the advice from this thread and a few others I've read through and head over to the gym or even do some retail shopping. But, I also wanted to share with you the best advice I have received, yet. It's from my mom, who is a veteran RN and preceptor to many new nurses -- Always be safe, for your pt and for yourself. You WILL make mistakes, but be a good nurse and verbally acknowledge it, apologize from it, and LEARN FROM IT.