bennyRN

Ditto!! 1 year for me as of next week! I remember when I first started, seeing the other new nurses who were 6 months-1 year in and thinking to myself "there's no way I'll ever be that competent". Well guess what, we are them now!!! Unbelievable how quick this year has flown by. I have to say I still feel pretty terrified though. I had a good reality check yesterday on my gen med floor - there was a code early on in the day, and then late afternoon my pt decompensated and had to go to ICU. And that's when I realized I still had no idea what to do when we whipped out that code cart, twice no less. Thank God for my amazing RN coworkers, who all at once jumped in to save my butt (and my pt's) that afternoon, while I just stood by and tried to figure out what the heck to do. And now I know a little bit more :) Two steps forward and one step back is the perfect description.

as part of my orientation to a medicine floor, i got to spend a shadowing day in the ED and it was an extremely eye opening experience. its unbelievable what those nurses deal with and i have so much respect for them. however, please dont bring up a patient with prbc's hanging and run away, only to leave the floor nurse to discover the bloods been hanging for over 4 hrs, theres still 1/3 of it left, and its completely clotted in the line. that was not cool.

sounds exactly like my floor, and somehow we are unionized. understaffed every night, the short staffed nursing attendants are sitting with patients, totally unrealistic expectations of measures to increase patient satisfaction. as far as i can tell so far being unionized means nothing. a new expectation on my floor: documenting a call to the translator service once per shift per non-english speaking patient. hospital in a 95% spanish speaking only neighborhood. get real.

I agree with the OP, you learn so much more about your patients from reading the MD notes, and by the end of 3 shifts with the same group of patients you feel like you know them iinside out. BUT, whether or not you have time to read the notes is a whole different story - we're allowed to clock in 15 minutes early but getting myself there that early is a whole other story! And finding time during the shift to read the notes is pretty impossible sometimes. Reading those notes and knowing whats going is so valuable, having a strong knowlege of your patient's pathophysiology and medical treatments allows you to provide much better care for your patients. We took all that painful chem, pathophys, microbio, pharm etc for a good reason!! We give verbal reports where I work, I cant even imagine getting report from a tape. And having it be considered "rude" to ask questions at the end of a peport? Thats absurd and dangerous for the pt's! I've gotten so many crappy reports where I've had to ask the RN pretty much every piece of info i needed to know...i cant imagine getting it via tape and not being able to asking questions.

Thanks for the words of encouragement :) im still looking for someone to get an apt with but there are a few prospects now so we'll see what happens. online dating...thats an interesting idea, maybe ill give it a try. I've finally started to feel a little more comfortable in my solitude, but i still dont want to miss out on all the fun of my 20's! 8 months down on my crazy floor, 4 more to go till i can apply for other units...time flies!

Sounds just like my floor too - seems to be a trend haha. We have 6-7 med surg pts on nights depending on how many RNs decide to show up for the shift lol. 1-2 CNAs IF we are lucky, and when there's only 1 the CNA's refuse to take any vitals...does that make sense? Half the floor is usually total care as well. 2 vents. 6 isolation and we've started turning doubles into isolations. I constantly feel like my license is on the line too, add that to only 6 mos experience...scary stuff. You're not alone! then they yell at you for not charting enough in detail and finishing your insane lists of tasks, and then yell again when you collect too much OT. this is NOT nursing....

So I'm a new grad for just about 6 months on an insane med-surg floor in a huge nyc hospital. I am so incredibly grateful to have gotten a job where I did, and survived for this long, and surprisingly I kindof like it (even though I was one of those who swore I'd never touch med-surg with a 10 foot pole). I've gotten loads of amazing experience already, work with incredibly supportive coworkers, and feel so accomplished just to have made it this far. I feel like I should be really happy at this point, but really I just feel kindof lonely/isolated from the regular world, and its starting to wear on me. I'm still living at home with my parents in the suburbs to save money, but also because I don't really have a roommate to get an apartment with (I dont want to live by myself, I need company or I'll go nuts!). None of my high school friends are around anymore, and I thought I'd be meeting new friends at work to hang out with, but on my floor nobody ever seems to get together - we all live very spread-out, and most people have families and whatnot at home. To top it all off, I'm working 12 hr nights, have had a hard time adjusting, and nobody on the outside really seems to understand my bizarre schedule (except my family, thank God). I basically depend on my parents and 16 year old sister for a "social" life and support system. My mom is an RN too so shes pretty much my lifeline at this point for venting about work, but she works days so I hardly see her as well. Plus at 23 I feel I should be a little more independent, but this job is just so stressful it feels impossible not to revert back to childish dependency on mommy and daddy. I took care of myself no problem for 5 years in college btw, but this job takes the meaning of stress on a whole new level (again, something my non-RN peers have a hard time relating to). Is there anyone else new to nursing who is feeling lonely this way? I know the social situation will eventually change. I love this job, but I hate the way it affects my everyday life. Please someone tell me I'm not alone in feeling like this!!

Unfortunately I think that its the nature of nursing not to feel prepared in your job after graduating from school. I feel that no matter how much you learn in school, you will never be prepared for the real deal of doing the job. The only way to get comfortable with it is by doing it for real. I've been in my first RN job as a new grad for 3 months now including orientation, and I think I've learned more in this time than I did in school....and I have a LONG way to go! I guess more clinical time in school would always be helpful and doing a larger patient load, but again as a nursing student, you're not licensed to do it "for real" so you wont get that experience till you are.