Aleera

See if you can talk to nurses from those units outside of their work environment. Most people aren't going to share negative thoughts when a potential new hire is touring the unit during the interview process. One big sign to watch for is how many experienced nurses there are and how experienced the charge nurse is (if you can.. this may be tough). If it seems like almost everyone is a new graduate or was hired in the last year and a half then the floor probably has a problem with staff retention. I was hired with 3 other new grads and 2 new CNAs... 4 months later we hired 2 new nurses and 3 new CNAs.... and now we have hired 3 new grads and 4 new CNAs.... On the plus side I love my coworkers even though my job is horrible. Unfortunately, you may have to take what experience you can get. Many times the places willing to hire new grads are the units with retention problems.

So I just graduated in May and passed my boards in July. I'm starting to realize just how unprepared I am. I keep forgetting to ask important assessment questions and forgetting important information. I volunteer at a free clinic and I was talking to a patient with diabetes. The patient hasn't had his/her meds for a while and was upset because the pharm company keeps sending the application back to us. I was asking the patient a bunch of questions trying to help and someone in the clinic (a non-medical person) reminded me to ask for the blood sugar. Well when I asked the patient just said "high." Instead of asking "how high?" I reacted to the patient continuing to get upset. After the phone call the non-medical person asked me what the patient's blood sugars were and I couldn't answer because I forgot to ask. It turns out that the patient probably doesn't have any supplies (because the supplies are provided when the patient attends an education class and this person had not come in a few months), but I still can't get over the fact that I didn't push from more information. That isn't all. I was giving flu vaccinations and this one lady started bleeding after the shot. As she was leaving a more experienced nurse made sure to ask the patient if she was on warfarin or any anti-platelet drugs. I completely forgot to ask the necessary questions after something like that happens. Yes, it was my first flu vaccination in a year, but I can't get over how I always forget to ask pertinent questions. It is like I can't think when I'm talking to people. How could my school allow me to graduate when I still make rookie mistakes? I'm really frustrated. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to remember important questions? Is there some sort of exercise I can do or workbook? Is this just something that will come with time?