bina78

I am a new nurse. I was so eager to get out in the field and fine tune my knowledge with hands-on experience. I was hired with absolutely no experience as a charge nurse in a LTC facility. I knew it would be extremely difficult but I was up to the challenge. After 2 days of orientation, where I basically shadowed a nurse that was too busy to even utter more than two sentences to me, and one day were I was able to pass medications to about four residents I was thrown on the floor by myself. The census was at 30 residents on the busiest 7-3 shift! 5 diabetics, 5 g-tubes most everyone needed their hearing aides place in, most everybody needed fentanyl, exelon and nitro patches, handful of patients with infections and antibiotic monitoring. I also started on the weekend where there was only 1 supervisor for 3 floors and an influx of family members demanding that all medications be exactly on time to the second. I was ready to quit! ...just walk away! Is this what nursing is? 30:1 patients with quality of care seems to be impossible. I see a lot of short cuts going on some seeming unsafe. Is this the average first day of nursing? Does it get better? I am more than capable of doing my job and I absolutely love being a nurse but I was wondering if this is the norm?