Reality Shock...

I just started a thread about my 1st week on the job....reality shock for me was how painful nursing is...at the end of my shift my feet hurt like crazy...clinicals and the real world are totally different. There is this intense pressure when you get on the floor....trying to do everything within an alotted timeframe leads to so much stress as a new grad...residents who are so accustomed to having their meds given at a certain time even if its not at the right time and they become so upset with you....you are lucky if you get a break....the paperwork! I come from a corporate setting and paperwork was organized and labelled, at my facility there are no manuals that inform you what paperwork goes with what! i'm sure things will get easier once i become more comfortable and familiar with things....good luck.

Reality shock for me was the long nights, the passive aggressive behavior among other nurses, the time management, the paperwork, the new admissions in the middle of the night, all the charting, giving a good report, etc.

Nursing school does not prepare the new grad for all the realities of the nursing world. They are too focused on NCLEX pass rates to be concerned if you are even able to start an IV once you graduate.

Reality shock for me was that I would be getting close to a year without being able to find a job. I kept hearing about the nursing shortage in nursing school but after graduating I found out that that so called nursing shortage doesn't exist in my area.

I agree with the poster above me. The true reality shock is the lack of jobs available after you graduate. I was fortunate enough to get on board with the H1N1 flu shot rollout, but that only lasted for about 3 months or so. I graduated in January of 09, took the NCLEX-PN in July, got my results back in August and passed (1st try!), and ever since I have been constantly trying to find any kind of full time LVN job. It's been over a year since I've been out of school, and summer's right around the bend to make it my first year as a licensed nurse. No one wants a new grad, and new grads cannot get experience. It's a HUGE catch 22, one that they don't prepare you for in school. I blame myself for not checking this out before I signed on for school, I'm man enough to admit that. Even still, it's embarassing, annoying, and troubling that I have no chance to get a full time nursing job anywhere. I've applied out of county and state too, with no luck. I love nursing and all I want to do in my life right now is get working as one, but there is little to no opportunity to do so. My biggest fear is losing the knowledge I just learned, and also the fact that I'm becoming more disenfranchised with the field of nursing everyday, even though I love this field. Good luck to you, OP, I hope your experience is far better than mine! (Do yourself a favor and don't work in California...there are no jobs here >

Yup, reality shock for me was graduating LPN getting my license in Oct 09 and not finding a job right away. I worked H1N1 for 3 months, but since then nothing.

reality shock: all the paperwork and order reviewing I never had to do in school. boo!

so there's no shortage of nurses...there's a shortage of jobs for nurses. i suspected this was all bullsh**.

i hope to all the new grads out there that things turn around quickly. there are jobs do not be fooled. its just that hosp arent hiring into the jobs.

as for the soon to be new grad..i am some years out and i STILL experience reality shock. for me its the insane working

conditions. i am appalled to be honest, just how HARD we work. i was a nursing assistant, i was astute. i knew bedside was very hard work but the demands placed on nurses is insane...

for example: think about juggling 6-8 patients, some really sick, total care, under different services, with several co-morbidities, tons and tons of meds to be given in a strict amount of time, several tests per day, several orders for patients, 12plus hours on your feet, someone about to code and family members demanding a better food tray....ALL AT THE SAME TIME. do this, be safe be quick and BE SMILING or else. and don't you dare miss an order, a med or a CHANGE in patient condition. it is an enormous responsibility.

this post isnt meant to be negative. just realistic.

There is so much to say about this topic. Nursing school definately doesn't prepare you for the perfect storms that may come your way.One night I had a pt with a a blood sugar of 36,a patient who just fell who hit her head.And at that moment another pt (not mine thankfully) coded.

Other hurdles include time management there is nothing worse than getting behind,having to run your butt off at the end of your shift and getting off late.

I do think nursing is one of the most honorable and rewarding professions and I am so proud to have almost one year under my belt.No matter how shocking a day can be I still feel that there is no other career than this one for me.Even though there are days I want to pull my hair out and scream,my heart is in it so I happily stick with it.

I work in the ER and I have a ton of reality checks/shocks. But, one of the main ones is death itself. Never saw it in nursing school. Saw a dead body, helped get it ready for the funeral parlor. That was sorta cool. Not my pt, but I got to help this one on their way, so to speak.

What I'm talking about is all of us leaving the room after working on someone doing compressions for 20 - 40 minutes, giving them oodles of drugs, intubated, working like crazy folks trying to save them and hearing the doc call it. The pt is flat out dead. It's just weird. One minute they are here, the next minute they aren't.

And all the feelings that go with that. Very mixed. So you gotta deal with the death, but you have live pts that need you. You gotta prep the body. You get to go home, this person doesn't. You hear the weeping family. You deal with the nursing supe who needs to make sure the code is coded properly because it's a charge to the family for dying. The room is a wreck since there's boxes and syringes and crap everywhere. It's a war zone for that time you try to save them and then it all goes eerily quiet and it's just weird. Every time.

Speaking of codes another reality shock is how the adrenilin has a way of giving you temporary amnesia:confused:! I have learned to write everything down so when the code team starts asking questions I can just refer to my brain on the paper!

Amen, Gonnabee! I just had my first code about 2 weeks ago and I was so aloof. Out of nowhere, several (ICU, ER) nurses came onto the floor asking about this and that regarding the pt. I was never informed during my orientation on what to do/how to prepare during a rapid response. Thankfully, the pt was stable.

The biggest culture shock would be the amount of "short cuts" I see some nurses do. Working at LTC opened my eyes to how much those facilities are understaffed. I now work in a gero/psych unit and rarely see nurses do an assessment. Granted, the pts are usually more stable than those on other units (i.e. med/surg), but still...things can get missed if an assessment isn't done.

Another thing is the amount of (paper) documentation and how repetitious it can be. Computerized charting is so much more convenient and efficient, but unfortunately my hospital hasn't caught up with the 21st century. Even the med/surg units don't use computerizes charting.