i am feeling quite overwhelmed with orientation. i am a rn with 10 yrs of experience in ltc, with no hospital experience. in a 5 day period, i have been orientated by 3 different nurses, all of which have their own way of doing things. so each time i get trained by another nurse, it slows me down because now i have to switch gears in my brain to figure out and learn their way for the day. every time i get a new nurse to train me, i have to start all over to show them that i know how to do a head to toe assessment.
i have 3 patients now and have so much to learn. many times during the day i have to call and wait for my preceptor to show me how to do a procedure, or have her watch me (she is busy with her other 2 patients). and plus, i have other nurses that call me for their patients to watch new procedures or do it for them because i have to get a lot of skills checked off by the end of my orientation next week. what bothers me is that at the end of the day (with everything done), i am told i need to work on time management. yet some of my time loss is anywhere from 1 to 2 hours during the day waiting for my preceptor or pulled to do procedures on other nurse's patients.
it is noticed by my preceptor i am slow to think about what i am doing, but that is due to my lack of no experience in this setting. every thing i am doing is new to me from doing labs, setting up ivs, pulling meds out of the pyxsis, etc..........
is this normal to happen during orientation? what is it like at other hospitals?
Specializes in Med-Surg, Tele, Vascular, Plastics.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me such inspiration! I had another really bad day today and my weekly evaluation by the supervisor. She said I am doing good but need to work on time management. And she told me again today I need to be taking care of 4 people next week and manage them well. I get so far behind because I am not sure about certain policies that take forever to read and not sure who I should contact for certain things. Anyway, I will hang in there!
No problem! Glad I could help... If you have any more situations or dilemas and you want any opinion on how to handle it differently... please feel free to ask or email me. I had the same problem too... I was always running late because my preceptor was never around when I needed to ask a question... If i wasn't sure on a specific policy I couldn't find her and didn't know who to ask... After some time, I started getting more assertive... Also If i knew something was going to come up later on that I wasnt sure on... I started telling the Preceptor that she may want to stick around because I am going to need help with the XYZ or ABC... Keep us updated!
Thanks everyone! What I find very hard is whenever there is a new procedure such as hanging blood (which I have never done before), changing the settings on the PCA (new for me), Heparin IV(new to me) or any NEW procedure on the med-surg floor.....I am told I need to look up the policy and read it. I never know from day to day what type of patients I will be getting for that day. I have looked at the policy's and procedures and it is quite time consuming to read all of this info. And the list of these policy's is never ending.
The moment I am finished getting report at 0700 to 0715, I have patients calling me for problems, IV machines not working, etc.....and I have not had a chance to review their chart or learn about this type of surgery or new procedures to deal with for that day. I have an 1 1/2 hours to get info on each patient, their med info, lab reports and assess and document on each patient. And during this time, I am called numerous times to answer my patients lights, toilet them, bathe them, clean up patients incontinent in their bed of urine or diarrhea, get their breakfast ready, do the I&Os, vitals, etc.. My orientation right now is 4 patients and no NAC. I am still with a preceptor, but she is not to help unless I really need her. All the other experienced nurses have NACs to help them.
Every night after work, I read policies on my own time and take some home to read. I also constantly have a different preceptor. That is hard because each one tells me, "That is not how it is done here." So I am not sure who to believe and it is things not specific in the policy. Example: documentation on the assessment sheet. Like one nurse tells me I cannot chart those specific words and a different preceptor the next day will tell me I must word my assessment in this way.
I feel like I am in Nursing Boot Camp. But, as negative as this all sounds, I still love being on the Med-surg floor. And everyone of my preceptors is so friendly and nice to me. They all make me feel very welcomed! I just wish the program on training was better and more consistent instead of making me feel like I am spinning out of control.
I find that Admissions and discharges are very hard. The process is so complicated. Thanks for all of your support! I have another week left of training.
Nrs_angie, BSN, RN
163 Posts
No problem! Glad I could help... If you have any more situations or dilemas and you want any opinion on how to handle it differently... please feel free to ask or email me. I had the same problem too... I was always running late because my preceptor was never around when I needed to ask a question... If i wasn't sure on a specific policy I couldn't find her and didn't know who to ask... After some time, I started getting more assertive... Also If i knew something was going to come up later on that I wasnt sure on... I started telling the Preceptor that she may want to stick around because I am going to need help with the XYZ or ABC... Keep us updated!