vespera186

Thanks so much for the encouragement, and I hope you're right. You've given me a lot of great advice (and a little bit of hope :) ) I've been there five weeks. But I do have classmates working on the same floor who seem to be doing much better than me. And I can't say anyone's been unkind (the opposite, actually), just that the anxiety makes it hard to THINK, and that as a result I'm truly not performing at the level expected even of someone straight out of school. I try to take it one step at a time, but have had trouble cracking the code, on the fly, of what IS the next step, out of a zillion items needing doing. And I seem to be getting the answer wrong a lot. Sigh.

You say you're a new grad -- are you still on orientation/preceptorship? That makes it hard to control your schedule (in my very limited experience) so you might have to tolerate more day shifts. I'm also a new grad going through terrible anxiety at work (it seems to shut my brain down) about to get my first batch of night shifts. I really hope that they're much calmer and manageable for someone who still has so much to learn.

Hello all, I'm a new-grad nurse on a crazy-busy med-surg floor, and I'm really struggling. REALLY struggling. Like, I'm-scared-for-my-job struggling. My super-nice preceptor is getting more and more openly frustrated with me, and that suggests I'm on the thinnest possible ice. It's been a really humbling/humiliating experience. I've always been the one other people came to for a little help, and now it feels like I'm beyond help. I'm not generally a screw-up, is what I'm trying to say. But I'm one now and I want to fix it. Yet I can't sort through the chaos to see the order. My preceptor can rattle off three blood sugars taken by someone else an hour ago, the lowest BP a patient had two days earlier, where everyone's PIVs/PICCs are and when they were placed, etc. I know this is all vitally important information, but I can't keep track of it all! It's a jumbled mess in my head and I'm constantly writing things down and looking things up, slowing me down. Or I get try to speed up and then I make mistakes, which is even worse. And I don't want to skimp on the other things, like calming down an anxious patient, ensuring pain control is adequate on a patient with dementia too severe for her to express herself, etc., without getting behind on tasks. So ... how did you adjust? How do you keep track of things? What tasks do you prioritize over others? How do you calm down when you get rattled? If you have any wisdom you could share I would be very grateful.

Sure, what is the fb group you're talking about? I didn't see one that's an open group that looked right. Also, PM me and we can figure out how to pass on the clothes.

Hello, any of you need a Marymount uniform (female)? I will seriously just give it to you because I'm about to graduate (yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!) and am incredibly happy not to need it anymore. It's a size small (which is M or L in normal clothes); shirt, blue and red (Inova) jackets. (I already promised the pants to a friend who can use them, so that's not included). Also, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about accelerated BSN, since I just experienced it. Good luck everyone!