muffin_

I went into the LPN program straight out of highschool, lol. So I really had NO medical experience of any kind, you actually beat me by taking care of grandparents, so don't worry :)

I'm a new grad nurse as well, and I get nervous before going in to work also. I've been told that being nervous is a good thing, it means that you're going to be careful and ask questions when you need to, the other nurses that I work with said that they'd be more concerned about an overly confident new grad than one who gets nervous. However, I think that if your nerves are too bad that it might be crippling and have a negative effect on your practice. Whenever I feel my nerves getting the best of me, I try to just think to myself that if I wasn't good enough, if I really did have no idea what I was doing, then I wouldn't have graduated, gotten my licence or gotten hired! It's also comforting to remember that almost every time another nurse has taught me something, they tell me that they learned this by making a mistake, it reminds me that EVERYONE makes mistakes, it's not just me. So, just wondering, what is it that really scares you about going to work? I mean, what do you worry about happening? For me my biggest fear has been time management and not being able to get anything done on time, so I'm just wondering about your fears, lol!

I work in palliative care, so we have a lot of families who aren't coping well and blame the nurses and other staff for their loved ones illness. I had one particular situation where one family member was yelling at me at 6 am at the nursing station because I went into their room to give routine pain medication and it woke him up. It was waking up other patients and family members and I was not able to control the situation, so the charge nurse came and talked to him, completely defending me and explained to him that even though in our unit family is welcome 24/7, it is NOT a place to expect a good nights sleep and why it was necessary for me to be in the room. I also had other patients family members ask me later on if I was okay, and say that they wanted to step in but didn't feel like it was their place, because they could hear the whole thing from their own rooms. It was very nice to have the charge nurse take my side and I think that it really turned into a more positive experience regarding confrontation with family members!

Just to add to what everyone else said, being in a rehab center is a good thing to have on your resume as a clinical rotation afterwards, because it adds variety!