Msviv17RN

I really appreciate all the encouraging words and support. :) didn't expect that this would be really HARD, very different from the hospital environment in our country. however, knowing many of you had gone through this and didn't quit gave me hope that someday I'll get there. Can anyone give me some tips on how to start a day at work so that I can be organized until the end of the shift which includes reading each chart of 20+ patients? Honestly, it scares me knowing I'll work again the day after tomorrow. -----

Hello everyone! I am really glad I found this site. I just wanna know your insights about my situation. I passed the NCLEX on August 2011 and couldn't find a job in hospitals so I applied in nursing home and got hired this October. Is it normal to feel like quitting my job on my 2nd day? They only gave me 2 weeks of orientation which means 6 days because I work 12 hours a day. This nurse assigned to orient me handles 20 or more patients and wanted me to just shadow him on my 1st and 2nd day. He's really nice and supportive but it is just impossible to train me and handle 20+ patients at the same time. He told this to the DON and said, ''the DON doesn't give a sh*t''. I told him to give me at least 4-6 patients so he did but I spent too much time in just one patient preparing his medications. I don't want to harm my patients so I was triple checking meds especially with narcotics. I couldn't ask questions because he's too busy preparing meds for his other patients on the other side of nurse station. I apologize for I'm slowing him down but he said that he doesn't expect me to get it on my 2nd day. Needless to say, I ended up shadowing him again. Now that I'm getting familiar with the residents on this unit they assigned me to a different nurse and different unit on my next schedule. Every minute of the day I was thinking of ways on how to cope in this situation but every time I figure out how it just doesn't work. There are many things going on at the same time. I do love this job but I feel so hopeless and helpless right now. This is so overwhelming, I'm just crying. I'm in my early 20s, I have a BSN degree, an immigrant here in US and still having difficulty in speaking and understanding English but I'm really willing to do everything to learn. Do you think it's best for me to continue? Is this really how the training conducted in every nursing home and hospital? What do you suggest me to do to be successful in this job? Thanks in advance to those who will reply. God bless you all!