After 3 days of orientation, I started on my own as an LPN at a skilled nursing facility. My patient load consists of about 30 residents and these include lots of g-tubes, tube feedings, accu checks and of course lots of meds! I work a 7a to 7p shift and I cant believe how crazy it is from 7-3. Being my first day, of course i was beyond overwhelmed. I learned how to give meds via g-tubes in orientation, but tube feedings and iv meds i had to learn my first day on my own. I was lucky enough to have a very nice nurse on my floor to help me, but i knew she was busy herself so I was worried about asking her too many questions.
The most frustrating thing about the day was not being able to find alot of the patients meds. I wasted alot of time searching for medications that I just never found. I assume most of these meds are being borrowed from other residents, but because I'm not familiar with what each resident gets, I couldnt go through the entire med cart looking for each med that was missing. I ended up not giving at least 13 medications on my one shift because of this. Of course I had a patient who fell, 2 patients who couldnt breath, 2 patients who would not stop calling me in their room and a family member who was complaining about the CNA. I had a hospice patient that needed to be suctioned, and I've never done this before so I asked for help. Long story short, I had 4 other nurses trying to suction this patient and they couldnt figure out why the machine wasnt suctioning. We finally got another machine, and that one didnt suction either. After almost 30 minutes of this, I ended up leaving the other 4 nurses to suction this patient because it was 2pm and I still wasnt done with my 9am meds!!
In the end I ended up leaving at almost 9pm and I couldnt even do my charting bc I was worried about getting in trouble with overtime since I am new. Is this the norm? I mean, I know its hard in the beginning but how long did it take you to become adjusted and HOW did you do it?? How do you organize your feedings and accu checks so that you dont waste so much time? And how do I tell the CNA's to please not chit chat with me at my med cart so I can actually do my job?
