SweetheartRN

More than likely not unless you know someone.

Stressful

I'm glad someone admitted that nursing has gotten harder. You'd think that we new nurses are just not being taught anything but I think the schools haven't caught up with the changes that have occured in practice. I pray that you find something you like better. With all your experience and education you'd think it would be much easier for you.:hug:

Yes I think I just did.

MommymF there IS NO REASON you HAVE to be miserable in your job ESPECIALLY if you don't have to work for insurance/benefits. I understand that not everyone is so lucky to be able to move around with ease because of financial responsiblities that have to be taken care of now to find a job they like but keeping your eyes open and making necessary changes in your life so that you can one day find something you like more is so very important for mental and emotional health. There is a difference between "not wanting to get up and go to work today" and having a near emotional/mental breakdown about the thought of having to go back to work in a couple of days. Not being able to enjoy your days off b/c your're just bidding time before you have to go back to work is a cardinal sign of your job taking over your life way too much in a negative way and possible burnout. I've experienced both of these scenarios and they are NOT the same.:uhoh21: You are using your pregnancy as another reason why you want to get out of this job but you hated it before you knew you were pregnant. Try to find another job before you quit and also don't talk about your pregnancy in any furture interviews.

Did she tell you she did not like what you posted? I think she was specifically referring to ScottE's post. Who said she was making her coworkers miserable? There are people out there who can hate their job but not let it spill into their work and disinfect their coworkers. How do I know? I was one of those people. When I decided to quit no one even knew I was leaving and was working my last day of my notice and they were all like....you're leaving????? But why???? Because I hate this freaking job and ya'll hate it too you are all just in debt and I'm not. so you have to stay but I don't.

Simply put....no they really don't.

How did she work in ICU for a year then? Think she knows the department manager? My last job new hires all knew the nurse manager. A few went to church with her or she knew their parents.

Munch, I am so so sorry this happened to you. I really am. I just have to wonder/ask what happened that caused the patient to fall? If she fell that easily with you, what makes you think she wouldn't have fell on the PCT as well? Do you feel you don't have the knowledge, training, or body mechanics to assist someone post op to the restroom? I'm sorry if I sound insensitive, I'm just trying to gain a better understanding. You say you never assist patients to the restroom? I just don't understand being a nurse that you never assist patients to restroom. Is it that you don't want to, don't have time, or don't feel you have the skillset to do it? Once again sorry this happened to you. ETA: I reread your post and now I see that you don't help pts to "that" bathroom. Sorry disregard that part of my post.

The best thing to do is talk with your doctor at length about the things and patients you need to avoid and do while you are pregnant and working as a nurse. This subject should not be a hit and miss type thing which could easily happen asking this question here. Even though its AN, its still just a public website. Also only you can determine as you go along whether or not you can handle the pace of the ED as your pregnancy progresses. Congratulations and good luck to you.

Please stop texting us. We are not on the phone.

I check the charts several times a shift. Check it when you come in. After you pass morning meds, when a patient comes back from a procedure....etc. Check it as often as you can throughout the shift. Especially when you notice doctors rounding. Nursing is very integral. It takes AWHILE to put it all together. In a few more weeks you will be paying attention to more and more things.....things that you didn't even have time to think about when you first began as you master your time managemnt. This is a period where you have to be a little bit easy on yourself. But I always question before I feel I might put a patient in danger regardless of how it will make me look because I would feel much worse than that if I really did put a pt in danger. You do need to stop making med errors. Sometimes tough love is what it takes to get you to HALT yourself and think about what you're doing. If there is not an emergency going on there is no reason to not be able to take a long moment and look at the meds. Its slightly better to be late then to administer to the wrong patient, wrong drug,dose,route,documentation. Remember you most likely have 30 min to an hour before and after the med is due. Match them against the orders. Remember your SIX RIGHTS. At what point do you mess up? Remember your three checks of the six rights. What helped me is that I watched the nurses on my floor do things alot. No matter how long something took they did things the RIGHT WAY. It feels like you have to rush now because there are so many things you don't know, have to ask/question/find out proper protocol/paperwork etc. because you are new and that takes alot of your extra time during the shift so you feel like you are drowning all day and that you have to hurry everything along as much as possible. Thats not good time management. That will turn out to be bad practice. If you do things right the first time...no matter how long they take it will save you time in the long run because the patient will have good outcomes and you will not be dealing with incident reports etc...There is always enough time to do things the right way. Ask for help when you need it. What kind of questions are you asking? Are they things you probably should have learned in nursing school and forgot? In this case, yes review them. Review lab values and common procedural guidelines. I'm new and I ask more questions related to hospital policies and procedures, or questions that I have an answer to already just want an experienced nurses professional opinion or clarification on. If you show you've been doing your homework the nurses may be more open to answering your other questions. I HTH you!!! Goodluck.

We work 12 hrs on our floor. I check the charts when I come on after report. The previous nurse did the same thing so technically our floor actually does "24 hour chart checks" every 12 hours. If you "Note" every new order in the chart that occurs during your shift that essentially is a 12 hour chart check. Its pretty effective because things typically get missed if they're gonna get missed only at shift change and when a new admit or transfer comes in. If a new order was written close to shift change and you didn't get a report on it by doing your chart check when you come in you can be sure it gets noted and taken care of. If a admission occured several days earlier and the admitting nurse missed something it also helps that the second and third nurse coming on after the admitting nurse reviews the orders again by doing the next 12 hr and then the next 12 hr chart check thereby completing tthe 24 hour chart check.

Is it really that important? I don't necessarily care what kind of ego-trip, self gratification, etc. in her/his mind it takes for a nurse to do the best job she/he can. IF it has no direct negative impact on the care they give. Its hard enough to continue to devote yourself to this very often times thankless, emotionally, physically, mentally draining job. If that's the least a nurse has to feel to maintain a type of purpose in this profession then far be it from me to tell them any different. I personally do not feel I save lives. In LTC we intiated CPR often before a bus arrived and ofcourse I had to be the one to determine their need to be outta there and then to call a code. I feel I help people from getting sicker(renal med surg) and sick at all(peds clinic) and thats quite enough for me. I feel that the patients on med surg floors are getting sicker and sicker and maintain alot more care than the "status quo" nowadays. Alot of my patients come directly from ICU or need to be back on ICU. We have Rapid Responses almost everyday while taking care of 6-7 patients at the same time. To be able to even monitor changes in a patients status is pretty freaking awesome with that caseload. And we have to do this without the equipment available to help us monitor b/c its not a monitor floor or ICU. I can understand why it might be a rub to ED and ICU nurses b/c their primarily there to do that. That IS what their job entails. Tell my manager to get these patients off my floor and I will gladly continue to keep patients from getting sicker...which is the max of what I want to do.

You have hit the nail on the head. You feel exactly like I do...minus the crying. I moan and complain alot before my shift though. People say it gets better, and I'm sure it does. How do you survive until that time is my question? I cannot live this way anymore, which is why I'm going back to the office setting where I don't get anxious before I go to work...where I actually look forward to going to work. I need to be mentally, physically, emotionally capable of taking care of myself and family when I'm off from work. I'm not able to do that working where I'm at now, on a med surge floor. My husband is so glad I'm going back to my pediatric clinic job...he'll get his happy wife back. Tomorrow is my last shift....I put in my notice three weeks ago. Normally I would be having a near panic attack because of having to work tomorrow but somehow knowing its my last day is making me feel as cool as a cucumber. To bad I can't have that feeling all the time or maybe I wouldn't be leaving. Everyone wants me to stay and thinks I'm doing a great job. I've been there only three months. Co-workers are saying I've improved and am doing really well to be where I'm at now and believe it or not I do notice some improvements but the point is I don't think the uneasiness I have will ever go away before I start a shift. Just because I look like I'm coping on the outside..I'm screaming on the inside. I'm making it through shifts by telling myself I'll be outta here soon.I'm relieved when I clock out and feel the weight of responsibility for these pts pulled off my shoulders and placed on the oncoming RNs and have a few days off. But am never able to truly enjoy all my time off because the first day off I'm still exhausted and the closer it gets to when I have to go back I start feeling the terrible "dread" again. Its no way to live and I don't know when the feeling will go away...if it ever will completely because I just don't like dealing with the unknown. I didn't know HOW much so until I was actually a practicing RN in the hospital setting. I like being able to expect what kind of day I'm going to have...what my patients are going to be like etc..and thats not really possible in the hospital setting. I also like when patients come in...I nurse them...and then they leave...no family drama no extra coordination of care to deal with that is present in the inpatient setting. Some will tell you to stick it out. I do believe if I stuck it out it would get better...but I don't have the desire to do this. I know myself well enough to know its not my niche. I feel so much better about working in the clinic setting. Truly I feel your pain.:hug:I hope you find some peace.

Drive for customer service. Very high acutiy patients for our floor and nurse to patient ratios.

OP I think shadowing an x-ray tech will be a good thing. Also make sure in your area you will have opportunity for advancement and different areas to go into in the field like ctnjason has been able to do if you are unable to move once you're done with school. I should have become an x-ray tech.

Scott, the visual truly wasn't necessary. I would rather be doing just about ANYTHING else. The painful part is that I'm working my last week of my three week mandatory notice and I can't call out or I will have to make it up. UGGHGHGH. If I can just get through three more horrible days!!!!!!!!!!!! :grn:

Well I must say the infatuation phase with nursing and my patients is long over. So whatever stage of "love" that comes after that is where I'm at. This is kinda funny because this reminded me that during my last semester of nursing school I wrote a paper where my instructor said if nursing didn't work out I could definitely be a writer......hmm she was probably on to something.

This is one of those posts everybody hates....:chair:

I'm happy to be going back to my peds clinic job in a structured environment where I can deliver care I can feel good about and be treated like a human being at the same time. I am moving into another phase of my life where I want to focus on family and friends, planning to start a family soon.:bby: And there is no way I will put my baby through what I've been going through these past few months. There is a lot I like about the floor I am on but the good doesn't outweigh the bad. My floor is extremely busy, the busiest med floor in a large university medical center(I heard after I was hired) and the low nurse to patient ratios, high acuities of patients, etc. politics, customer service, blah blah blah, I didn't sign up for. There is a high turnover rate on my floor which I didn't know about at first either. I get so many complaints about things I cannot control.....the cafe didn't send me the right tray.....while I'm in the middle of trying to initiate an order that is pertinent to another patients care, send another to this procedure, stop a patients bleeding central line dressing that the doctor won't put another suture in, round with a doctor on another patient, talk to a nagging family member, keep an AWS patient from pulling out his foley because he wants to "go to the bathroom", etc. the lab calls, the pharmacy calls, other depts., it never ends.... But it will end in a week for me because I'm on the second week of my three week mandatory notice. I'm done already after a few months in. It might make my resume' suck but I do have another job to go to and am very grateful I already know I will like it. If you have aspirations to be an ED nurse then I think you should continue to plug away at the experience. It will only help you when you go to the ED. There you will most likely have those patients who want you to be a waitress to them as well if not moreso. You have to take the good with the bad. The question is, does the good outweigh the bad?

It sounds overwhelming like my floor. I had a six wk orientation. We are not a monitor floor but its extremely busy because its renal medical. Patients are frequently going and coming to and from procedures, surgery, dialysis etc. I don 't have another floor to compare it to other than floors I did clinicals on. Its busier than those. We are short often so I have to have 7 patients on DAYS frequently. I rarely if ever get a lunch break. All I can tell you to do is hang in there or find another floor to transfer to. I'm leaving and going back to my peds clinic job. Currently in my second week of three week notice. I don't want the anxiety that I have anymore on this job. There is no time to think about what you're doing. The acuities of the patients are too high to have that many patients. I'm afraid my heart isn't in it anymore because I don't feel like I can deliver the best care in this position. I hope it gets better for you.

I agree with NickiLaughs...it sounds like you spend about as much time as you most likely would with your son if you were to work nights in the hospital. Unless you've done nights before you won't know how well you will adapt to it and be able to get up and spend time with your baby. I realize that you want to get out for more experience though and I can understand that. Networking seems to be the best way to get a job period. Also I would start calling HR and inquire. It can't hurt seeing that you're not getting callbacks anyway. I hope you find the job you want!

I dreamed that I was assigned a patient that I forgot about that I never saw, assessed, or passed meds on all day long and didn't remember I had them until it was time to give report to oncoming nurse.:uhoh21:

I pray. Also I realize that when I get off especially right after a shift I just tell myself that I'm finished with my shift and there is nothing more I can do during my time off. My shift is OVER. You really really do have to shake it off. I guess I have the work me and the non-work me. They are two different ppl lol. I notice that nurses who are best able to let go of work are the ones that appear uncaring sometimes to the Supernurse Nightingale types. Yes ofcourse CARE during your shift, and then "let it go" when you're off. If you don't you will burn out fast because of being consumed by work. For me its mentally passing on the responsiblity to the nurse I gave report to. Its their turn to care for these patients. I've done my time and its time for me to go now.....I will mentally get back into the nurse me when its time for me to go back to work. Last night I did wake up and think about anything I might have missed...what else could I have done or done better and I reminided myself you do the best you can with the skills and resources you have to do it with and I went back to sleep and slept peacefully. Good luck to you.