newRN2012

I was fired after working 3 1/2 weeks. I posted a thread here if you noticed. I was pretty upset but not devastated. I got a job at nursing home last friday, a week after I got fired. It was nice and I cant complain anymore. Good luck on finding another job! I wish you the best!!

I wasnt going to reply to that post. But I think I should. I already explained in my previous post that english is not my first language so knock it off!If you are so concerned about RN's writing skills nowdays, why dont you bring the issue to your director or BON or other athorities?! I posted this post was meant to seek everybody's opinions about those situations occurred to me at work. That's it. I am clearly aware of my not compotent writing skills. That's all I want to say.

I applied jobs in NH. I ve seen nurses got jobs at the hospital who used to work in the NH for many years so I do think it counts.

Thank you. I wrote an email to the dean of my program and she is currently out of town and she will let me know when she is in town. Hopefully she will give me some advise and discuss whether it's a good idea to write a letter to BON

Ruby! I love reading your post and I learned so much from reading them. During the 3 and 1/2 weeks orientations, the only negative feedback I got were" calm down little bit" and "be sure to chart carefully". As for the narcotic wasting, I wish someone could said sth to me such as "you didn't learn that from school or you should have known that better" then she/he could start a lesson. Instead, she did not say anything and I got this "do not know how to waste narcotics" from the director. There were so nurses during orientations helped me so much and they were wonderful while some were just wanted to finish their jobs and did not help me go through everything. Amway, my biggest lesson is to ask ask ask and restart to learn everything!! I have a question for everyone When I was applying for jobs at one big hospital in town, they have a question asking "have you ever been discharged or forced to resign from any positions"? I clicked no (I was foolish)and I wanted to fix it but there was nothing I could do. What if they find out I was discharged? I am screwed. Do you guys think I should call human resource and get the problem fixed? Thx

Thank you thank you thank so much everyone for your comment and criticisms. I already moved on and applied for a couple of positions here in town. I like criticisms as long as they are right and I like people being honest with me and point out my weakness so I can learn. I wish people in reality can be this honest!!!!! I wish.

hey kcmylorn: the COPD pt happened was the day I was with the nurse who had three years (she told me she had been there for three years in that hospital so I am not sure if she worked in other hospital or not). However, she was not in his room with me when all the coughed/aspiated situation occured. and yes you are right, the LPN(of 6 years)/new RN was with me when the narcotic wasting/count happend and she prob the one told my director I was not detailed enough. Thanks Parkerone:!!!! Did that patient who aspirated, have a temp at anytime before/after that? We didnt take his T and I believe we looked over his chart and he was fine. He was a vietam veteran so his neck got injuried by then I thought. He was an old patient (came to hospital couple of times/month) so some nurses know him well enough. As I mentioned before, one older nurse came into the room and I told her what was going on, she said he would be fine. I really what else I could have done to prevent that. Did anyone order a speech eval because obviously the patient needed more teaching about swallowing, etc. I dont believe so. He had breastfast and took morning pills well so I was so concerned when he spilled some water out of his mouth. I should have been more cautious. Also were any chest xrays done, even if no temp to rule out pneumonia after the aspirations? He is supposed to get pneumococcal vaccine before he got discharged. The last time he got vacinnated was four years ago so he was not supposed to have another shot till next year. They didnt think it was a big deal because it was normal for him. I was panic because this never happened to me:( As for the book, I will take a look at it. Thx for the recommendation. Thx so much for sharing with me of your experience. Next time I will trust my instinct form gout and yes, no more excuses!!!!!

thankskcmylorn the nurse i was orienting with the night shift before i got fired was an lpn for about 6 years in that hospital but she got her license this may. i dont know if i still count that as just new graduate or not. i will take your advise, and talk to the dean of my school program and see if i need to write a letter or not. thx so much!!!

When I was reading your post, I kept asking myself did I miss anything when I assessed him, here is how I did my assessment for that COPD patient: "I walked into the room with the nurse, he was eating breakfast(did not turn his head!) and I introduced myself and the nurse, asked how did he sleep and how was he doing; he answered he was doing well. He knew the nurse I was orienting with because he was an old patient. He was alert, awake/orient; I listened to him, lung sounds were diminished and heart sounds were normal; there was no swelling; IV site was intact, no infiltration/infection; he was on O2 @2L/min; the LBM was yesterday. I passed my meds afterwards and he did well. The situation happened during lunch time and I explained in my previous post and I remember there was another old nurse came into the room who took care of him before when I was panic. I told her what was going on and she smiled and told me he would be fine and just leave him alone. He finished lunch without any assistance. I did not have a chance to sit down till about 12ish that day cause we had five patients and there was another patient in ciritical condition so we were staying in his room more than we did at the COPD patient. I kept asking myself, what could I have done better to avoid missing such things happen in future. He was moving head freely and he was pretty independent. Again, I think he was more mad at me because I told him he could not have the nose sprayer till late that night. I asked the nurse I was orienting with and she told me to tell him that. I feel so bad:( Patient's safety is the priority, but the nurse I was orienting with told me to tell patient to wait and I should have done better. I totoally regretted my decisions and I am responsible for my own actions!!! again he took his morning pills just fine..so I assumed he just drank water too fast:(. Again, I will never assume anything. For IV, I was clumsy when I hung the IV and before I figured sth out she already pointed out. I just do believe I should have be with one experienced RN throughout the orientation. But I wont make excuses for the mistakes I made!

Thanks so much for your comment. I would not put this on my resume and I will definitely ask about how the orientation work. Thanks so much for your comment as well. For the COPD pt, I did ask the preceptor about any prn and she told me he would have to wait because all the nose sprayers were BID. I learned my lesson and from now on I will put patient's safety first even if my preceptor told me not to worry about! Thanks so much. I will definitely list this narcotic situation as example in the interview if I get any in future. Yes, english is not my first language and I really did not have any problems communicating with most pts as far I can remember. The thing is we did give the pt the right doses and I just need to pay more attention. I learned so much from this experience. I am always responsible for my own actions because I am a licensed professional not a student anymore. Thank you for your comment! Thx for your commment. I am not going to appeal to HR because that job was not my ideal at first place(it takes me 1hr and 20 minutes to get there); besides that, the medical unit on that floor is the busiest and I dont think they have any busier unit at that hospital. I am going to appply a larger hospital. for the preceptors, the nurse I was orienting with when that COPD pt complained only worked on the floor for three years and the nurse I was orienting with when the narcotic situation happened worked as LPN for 6 years and got her license this May.

I do appreciate your comment. This is really helpful. For the aspiration thing, the first time happened I thought he was just drinking water too fast because it did happened to another pt so I didnt really pay attention(I learned my lesson). I asked him do you want to take a break and he said "I will be fine" so I let him try second time (he drank slowly) and coughed. Then he told me he should have turned his head to the right side and he was fine. When you drink sth too fast, dont you sometime cough little bit water out?! However, I do realize that being panic was not very professional. The point was I do not believe being aspirated made him mad at me. It was when he asked for inhalation (THE ORDER was BID) so he could not have it till night time and he was so not happy and then he told me he wanted to talk to the nurse I was orienting with. BTW, I DID apopolize to him and he said he should be the one to apologize for not having telling me in advance. I know I should have known better. FYI, I did not have narcotic waste during oriention. Here is how my orientation worked: starting at the first day I was on the floor and I followed a nurse and I've had about 9 shifts and each shift I was with a different nurse and all I was doing was just doing assessments, giving meds (some of them will follow me and some of them just let me do things by myself and ask them if I have any questions). I never had any formal classes except glucose testing and documentation. I did ask a lot of questions. FYI, for the IV, I didnt even to get to do a single one:( so I have no idea how did that poor IV skills judgement come from. I strongly agree with you with your last paragraph. I am trying to learn from this experience thats why I am posting this. I didnt ask you to judge whether they fired me was right or wrong; instead, I asked for your opinions. I do realize I made bad decisions and I have so many things to learn.

Thabks so much ACY for your comment. When I was unsure something, I did ask and told them I was not sure. for the pt had right side weakness, it happened this past monday and the director didnt mention at all when she saw me on wed morning so it was strange.

Thanks so much for the comment. As for IV, I had my clinicals at GI center at local hospital so I had inserted about 10. The problem all the patients I had at work were elderly and I never got chance to insert an IV. I did report this to my director. As for the right side weakness, I know I should have known that. The problem was that when you were orienting, you were with somebody so it was not up to you to look at at the chart and get to know patients before you enter the room. It was not up to me. The nurse I was orienting with told me to start to do assessment and pass meds and I could not say I want to look up patient's charts so I was kinda frustrated. Also why do I get complaints about my skills from my director instead of the nurses I were orienting with? Some of them were just not nice and I dont know why. I dont know if anyone ****** at me because I was gonna take 18 days off to go oversea with my husband and they felt unfair for me to take that many days off?! I dont know, but yeah, I am starting to apply for new jobs. also the thing is I cant appy for hospitals in that system anymore:(

Hi everyone, I know this is all about Nclex but I just want to share with everybody my experience. This site helped me a lot when I was studying for my nclex and I will answer some questions of nclex as well if anyone has questions. All I want to say is working as a new RN is as hard as passing nclex. I graduated from a BSN school in May 2012 and passed my nclex at the end of june. I got hired as a RN in a rural hospital at medical unit before I graduated. It takes an hour and twenty minutes to get there so yes, I commute. I started my job on 2nd, July and the orientation was supposed to last a month. Everything worked alright till this wednesday morning. My director told me I was not a good fit for their unit and I didnt know how to waste narcotics and I wasnt pay attention to details enough. Besides that, I also totally made one patient feel uncomfortable. Here is my side of story of that compliant of one patient: I got complaint from one patient as he stated that he was not comfortable with me being in the room. what happened was he aspirated and almost choked three times when I gave him medications because he didnt turn his head to the right side. He has COPD and right side weakness so he was supposed to turn his head to his right when he was eating or drinking. I was not aware of that situation(his right side weakness) and I was totally panic as there was nobody with me at that time. I didnt get report from last shift nurse as well so I dont know should myself be responsible for that his being choked accident??? As for narcotic waste, I didnt know if you only give half dose, you are suppose to waste half doses, but after the nurse I was orienting with pointed out, I was doing the right way afterwards. so in summary, I didnt actually make any medication errors so I was assuming she meant potential med errors. The director also said I am too hyper, not calm enough and the fact was I wasnt nervous with every single patient (she said shes not gonna go from there). She also pointed that I didnt have good IV skills I was supposed to have from learning at school. The point is IV skills staff like that is not gonna be perfect just by learning at school, right? Practice makes perfect and now I feel like I am such a loser!! I am here to hear everybody's thoughts and dont afraid to say harsh things. I like different opinions. Thx