ShannaBananaRN

Thank you all so much for your replies, it helps a lot just to know I'm not alone! I've decided to stick it out. My biggest problem is that if I don't know something, usually clerical stuff and I ask another nurse "how do you print off the req form?" for instance they just look the other way. Hopefully some days and some nurses will be better than others. I think you are right in that I'm not there to change things...this is a slow realization for me but I'm getting there, haha. Thirteen weeks, thirteen weeks, thirteen weeks....

I have been and L&D nurse for a year and a half at a level one trauma center that delivers over 500 babies a month. Needless to say I have seen A LOT in a short period of time and have become very comfortable with any situation. Due to life changes I moved back home and unable to find a permanent L&D position I decided to try travel nursing for a little while. I'm in the first week of orientation which has been mostly computer stuff, not on the unit and I feel like I've made the hugest mistake. I have been going up to the floor after the main hospital orientation to try to get my bearings on the floor and I am appalled at the conditions. The nurses are so rude and either don't know or won't answer my questions. I have no idea of patient flow, where they come from, how they get to a room, who makes the chart, who becomes the doctor, who becomes the nurse. Not to mention, all of the equipment is different, I don't know how anything works, they use drugs I've never heard of and some that are not backed by evidence-based practice and the computer charting is a nightmare. I should tell you that my old hospital used a WONDERFUL computer charting system specifically for labor and delivery and I am used to charting EVERYTHING at the bedside down to "patient turned to side" and "chux pad changed". These nurses don't chart anything at the bedside and instead keep notes and stay up to 2 hours after their shift to chart...of course by that point all you can remember is "patient delivered baby" and "no lacerations". I'm used to charting every last detail and being easily able to do so. Their system is so complicated that the nurses just chart everything like a little story in a "notes" option instead of in the places where they are supposed to be. This hospital also does not have gloves in many of the rooms, you have to go out to get them and the triage rooms don't even have overhead lights, how am I supposed to do my job in the dark? I'm a very clean nurse and I like to keep things tidy and they just have little trash cans in the rooms like an afterthought, they don't even have biohazard trash in many of the rooms. They also treat their patients like crap and do not focus at all on patient CARE, but how could they with all this peripheral crap slowing them down? I'm not used to doing my own AC sticks for labs and I'm not used to requisition forms, these things were previously taken care of by our secretary and phlebotomists unless in a real emergency situation. None of the patients have prenatal care and I'm not used to that and they don't used proper precautions with infectious disease patients. Let me just say I'm terrified of a bad outcome and getting sued later on, I feel terribly sorry for the patients who are not even given a chance to bond with their babies before they are taken to the nursery, I feel like an idiot who doesn't know how to do anything and the scary part is, I'm wondering if this is normal and what I'm used to was just heavenly? And of course, I'm single all alone in a far away city which doesn't help at all. Oh, and this hospital has a wonderful reputation for being on the cutting edge, its a university hospital. I am shocked and appalled and 13 weeks seems like an eternity right now. Can anybody relate? How do I make them answer my questions and learn how things are done? Any advise is much appreciated!