NewGradRN114

I've had some really embarrassing moments 1. I was working a night shift and I was doing my final rounds at 5am. My patient had a Foley and it wasn't draining. I could not figure out why it wasn't draining so I asked another nurse to come in and take a look at it. I asked her if I should irrigate it to see if it's draining properly. Well the Foley bag was hanging off of the railing of the bed which was higher than the patient's bladder so obviously it wasn't draining. The other nurse just lowered the Foley bag and it started draining. It was such a simple solution but I was clearly overthinking. 2. I once asked a patient when her last bowel movement was. She just looked at me and pointed to her colostomy. I felt so dumb. I was working with this same patient and I was getting her medication ready. When i was at the bedside I was opening her medication packets and talking to the family at the same time. I wasn't paying attention and I put the pills in her cup of water instead of the med cup. Once I realized what I did I apologized to the family and patient and went to get her more medication. We were able to laugh about it but I remember thinking they probably thought I was the most incompetent nurse. 3. I went to prime a feeding tube and forgot to take the cap off the end. The pressure built up and the cap popped off and hit the patient in the face. 4. I had four patients in a ward room and all of them were confused and trying to climb out of bed on their own. The one patient would purposely make his bed alarm go off to agitate the other patient in the room. He found this hilarious. My other patient came back from dialysis and as I was dealing with these other confused patients this patient got really agitated and pulled out his PICC line, Foley and even managed to disconnect his rectal tube from the collection bag. Every time the patient coughed poop flew across the room. As I was trying to get him settled and assess the damage he ripped the curtain down. The room had poop, blood and urine everywhere and the patient was all tangled up in his bed sheets and curtain with his body fluids all over the bed. The room looked like a crime scene. 5. I had a patient who was postop and hadn't had a bowel movement in a while. The shift before me gave her a suppository so when I first entered the room the patient wanted to get up and go to the bathroom. I was working with the other patient in the room when I heard the patient in the bathroom talking to her daughter saying "Do you think we should tell the nurse?" They were whispering and I got a bad feeling. When they came out of the bathroom they informed me that she had diarrhea. I told her it was not big deal, we would get her back to bed and clean her backside. I went into the bathroom to make sure the patient had flushed and there was diarrhea everywhere, the walls, all down the toilet and the floor. At my hospital it's the nurses responsibility to clean up this mess, housekeeping comes after to disinfect. Well the bathrooms are very small and as I was cleaning, I was bumping into the walls and sliding all over the floor. I managed to get poop all over my scrubs. Not a good start to a shift.

I was working an afternoon shift and had 2 discharges and an admission during my shift. I also had a few aggressive/confused patients. As I was running around trying to get everything done, my one patient who was mostly independent called to say she needed her nurse immediately. When I went to go see what she wanted she said she needed help setting up her pay as you go plan on her phone.

I didn't realize working 12 hour shifts means you only work every third weekend. I would love that! I work every other weekend right now but I usually pick up shifts on weekends. Or my coworkers want to switch shifts with me and I end up working several weekends in a row. I once went two months without having a weekend off.

I work in a small town hospital so it is not uncommon for me to see people I know as patients in the hospital. However, I have never had to take care of someone I knew until last night. I got an admission and it turned out to be my sister's co-worker. I've only met her once before but I've heard a lot about her. When I realized I would be taking care of her it kind of threw me off guard and I felt flustered. I wasn't expecting my admission to be someone I knew. I know in a small town hospital it can be unavoidable to have to care for someone I know. Has anyone else had to care for someone they knew? In this situation it wasn't someone I was close to but if it was a family member or friend I think it might be a little more awkward.

There are some really good points made on here. I would just like to add a few things. 1. The reason I say I will have a better chance of getting stuck working days is because when you work 8 hour shifts you have the chance to work days, afternoons or evenings. I am part time and my schedule is all over the place. One day I might be working days, then I'll have a day or two off then I'll work afternoons and maybe work nights the next day. As a part timer I don't get to choose which shifts I prefer, I'm just there to cover any gaps in the schedule so I might only work 2-3 days a week and sometimes these shifts are not scheduled in a row. That's why I say I have a better chance of having to work days; if there are only two shifts each day there's a 50% that I'll get scheduled days. 2. Some people mentioned working 3 shifts a week is better because you'll have less admissions/paperwork/charting. On my floor it's not uncommon for me to have 2 discharges and an admission all in an 8 hour shift. Usually these admissions come closer to the end of my shift and sometimes I only have time to check on my admission, take a set of vitals and get them situated in their room before the end of my shift. If I were to work a 12 hour shift I will not only have those discharges to deal with but also the admissions all in one shift along with my all of my other nursing responsibilities. 3. I can see why some people prefer to work 12 hour shifts. More days off, less time dealing with management, less time spent overall just getting ready for work and travel time. Also on my floor during a day shift I often feel so overwhelmed when I have to try and get everything done in an 8 hour shift. I feel like I might be less overwhelmed if all of that responsibility was stretched over 12 hours instead of 8.

The hospital I work at is thinking of switching from 8 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts. I personally prefer to work 8 hour shifts because: 1. There is less of a chance that I'll have to work days (I hate working days). 2. I only work part time and I feel like if we start working 12 hour shifts I'll get less hours since there are less nurses needed to cover each shift. 3. When I work overtime (16 hour shift) I get paid for 8 hours of overtime instead of 4 hours if I were to work 12 hour shifts. 4. The unit I work on is an extremely busy orthopedic floor and I am usually exhausted after working 8 hours. 5. I live about 35 minutes from the hospital I work at so my 8 hour work day usually turns into a 9 hour (or more) workday. If I were to work 12 hour shifts I would have just enough time to shower and sleep before going back to work. I think if I was full time I would prefer 12 hour shifts so I could have more days off but since I am only part time, 8 hour shifts work just fine for me. Does anyone else prefer 8 hour shifts?

I was scheduled to work a day shift this week and when I woke up in the morning I started feeling nauseous, dizzy, lightheaded, I had cold sweats and ringing in my ears. I tried to go sit down but I wasn't fast enough and I fainted. I woke up on the floor and I had hit my head pretty hard. It took a couple of minutes to reorient myself and figure out what happened. I was pale, weak and tired after so I decided to call in sick but I feel guilty because I called in at 0530 and I don't work a lot of shifts to begin with because I am part time. This was my first time calling in sick but not the first time I've felt lightheaded or dizzy in the morning. I went to the doctor and he said it sounds like a typical fainting episode and he sent me for bloodwork. I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if anyone else ever feels guilty for calling in sick.

I am a new grad. I've only been working at the hospital for about 2 months and I hate it. Some days are good but most days are bad. I work on a busy orthopedic unit and nursing is not how I thought it would be. I am a lot more stressed out now than I was when I was in school and I am not enjoying my profession. Some days I am so busy I don't get to take a break and there are a lot of new nurses on my unit which makes it even more difficult. Since I've started working on the unit there have been about 5-6 new nurses that have been hired. This makes it difficult for me to find someone to go to when I need help and I feel bad for the people I go to for help because they have all of these other new nurses asking them questions as well. During my shifts I feel like I am being pulled in a million different directions and I don't have as much time to spend with my patients as I would like. We get a lot of admissions and discharges on this unit and most of my days are spent completing tasks rather than actually taking the time to talk to my patients and provide health teaching. On top of this, management keeps adding work to our workload. Sometimes when I am charting I have to chart the same thing on two or three different forms. The hospital also has broken or missing equipment making the job that much harder when I have to take time out of my shift to go and find something. A lot of other nurses feel that they are overworked and staff morale is low. The other part time jobs I had while in school required me to work weekends/holidays and shiftwork. They were also physically demanding jobs. So after only two months of being a nurse I already feel like my back/legs are starting to hurt (even on my days off) and I am really tired of working weekends/holidays. I can't decide if I hate nursing altogether, if I hate bedside nursing or if I just hate the job I am at now. Most people tell me that the first year as a nurse is the worst but I don't see it getting any better. Does anyone have similar experiences or suggestions for me? I really don't want to give up nursing. This has been my dream since I was a kid, it's just not what I was expecting.

I work on a postop med/surg unit and this is also how we get our assignments. I'm also a new grad and I'm often stuck getting whatever patients are left over. It makes sense for people to want to have the same patient assignment every day but at the same time I feel like I sometimes get stuck with the more difficult patients. I have worked shifts where the charge nurse has two patients who are stable and who have been in the hospital a long time while I get four patients, some who have come from ICU or are more complicated and I feel like I can't keep up. This past week I have worked every other day, so whenever I go into work I always have a different patient assignment.

My first shift was completely overwhelming. I felt like I was unable to keep up but the staff on the unit are really friendly and helpful. The last few shifts I had were pretty good. I feel like I am learning more now that I am done my orientation because I am responsible for everything for my patients. I'm still asking lots of questions and I still feel slow but I'm sure that will improve with more experience.

I usually wear a sweater or jacket over my scrub top after work so I'm less likely to contaminate anything but I agree with what others have mentioned. I'm not rubbing myself on the food in the store and grocery stores are not the cleanest places to begin with. Think of all the people who don't wash their hands after they use the bathroom and then go into the store and pick through the fruit and vegetables. I always try to stay as clean as possible - I wash my hands when I leave the hospital and if I feel that my scrubs are really contaminated then I don't go out after work.

Now a days, I prefer not to do it if I can avoid it. Mostly because I get tired of people stopping me in the middle of shopping to ask what is wrong with them. Good point! I never thought about that.

Now a days, I prefer not to do it if I can avoid it. Mostly because I get tired of people stopping me in the middle of shopping to ask what is wrong with them

I just wanted to post a question to see what others think of wearing scrubs outside of their place of work. I live in a small town about 30 minutes away from the hospital I work at and sometimes after work I try and get some errands done in the city before driving home. I do this so I don't have to make another trip to the city on my days off. I have a locker at work but it's just big enough to fit a purse so I can't even bring anything to change into after my shift. I would love to hear any opinions people have on this topic!

I had 2 weeks with a preceptor (10 shifts). I live in Ontario and most hospital orientations are only 2-3 weeks.