TraceyDiane

I'm a new nurse to. When I started looking for jobs after I got my licence everyone was looking for at least 2-5yrs experiance. "You got to start off somewhere" so I looked at area nursing homes. Its not my dream job however its going to give me some experiance under my belt so when I do look for my new job I can say look I did this for x amt of years. Also I have actually learned a great bit from working in LTC the older adult patient usually has a bunch of different drugs with even more side effects so I have been looking up more and more drugs and learning even more about disease processes. Which I think its really sad that someone takes a drug for one disease process and then have to take another drug just for the side effects of that one drug. (Just a food for thought) Also the place I work is willing to pay up to 50% of my school if I choose to go back to get my RN. Yea I'm going to be under contact to work for them for x amt of time, but its a job and sometimes jobs for new grads are hard to come by. Good luck on your job search!

Thanks everyone. Lastnight/this morning was my first run out of the gate. I think I did very well. All my meds got passed with in the alloted time, all my treatments were done! That is like the monkey on the back, after I get all of that done its basicly smooth sailing til 5am. The only thing that went bad was I forgot to write the patient's name on a order and I still had a ton of charting to do after my shift. Luckly the next shift nurse was right on time, which that never happens and I could give her report as soon as I was done with med pass. So I started my charting and was done and out of there 5 mins later than I should of been! I know a full moon is slowing getting ready to happen so therefore I know all my patients are going to lose their heads hopefully I'm ready when that happens. Thanks for the words of encouragement!

So I started this new job only about 2 weeks after I passed by state boards, thats pretty cool. But I'm in training right now and I feel like I'm the slowest person on the floor, I work midnight shift (6a-6p) its not the staying awake thats hard its the night med pass! I swear it took me forever to figure it all out, were are the drugs, who are the patients where are their rooms, it was a just a complete disaster! And tonight the charge says I'm ready to hit the floor on my own! I think she has lost her mind!!! But anyways I was wandering if anyone has any ideas that would speed up the craziness of my night between med pass (and trying to see how they take their meds, its not in their MAR, its just something that is passed from nurse to nurse and I guess the previous nurse thinks I can read minds or something), treatments, wound care, charting, making sure my aids are doing what they are suppose to do (some are really nice to me and understand I'm still 'green', and some think I'm a push over since I'm new and they can get away with everything!) and then another med pass at 5am, giving report and then charting my 24* report all with out curling up in a ball and crying my eyes out for a 30 patient hallway or beating my head against the wall! Any tips or tricks that has helped you guys in the past would be greatly appreciated!