I'm a new grad who just recently found a job in the east coast. It's in an acute psychiatric facility- my title--- Charge Nurse. The patient ratio here is 20:1. Upon the hiring, they said they will train me for 12 solid days on the unit. I am floating to all units of the hospital. I will be the only nurse on the unit who is responsible for CNA,LVN, all 20 patients who are acutely ill.
During orientation, they suddenly told us they're giving us five training days. =/ and i'm already almost done, i feel 25% competent by day 5. I am learning as fast as I can but in no way or shape, I can do what do in the next two days to be on my own. to make matters worst, you are literally the ONLY RN on the unit, and no other RN.
on weekends, no supervisors are around. no managers, no body. no doctors, no pharmacy. nothing. and my first shift alone, is going to be a weekends.
during orientation, the focus was $$$. you guessed, they are for-profit. Talking nonstop about how much the hospital is making. never once said the nurses are being treated well. Throughout orientation, i heard the words "how you can lose your license" almost 100 times. This is how you can lose your license, and if you do this, you can lose your license.. now if you do this, you can get reported, suspended.
this hospital has a history of firing 30 nurses in the last year- for god knows what reason. nurses are extremely burned out. all sounding like they want to quit and don't know how to manage to survive day by day. Only 1 nurse gave me a smiling face that he is doing fine. Today I got screamed at by one of the nurses who said " i refuse to let u draw up meds" because you've never been trained, and how can you be on your own after 1 day. management got involved, and told her its the new policy to just let the new orientees to "just do it" without training. and it was chaos.
of course all of us orientees went to management and spoke our concerns. they dismissed it and pulled out the schedule sheet. They said you're fine! don't worry! you wont get your license suspended! just be confident! here look, a supervisor is floating around (mind you this supervisor is in charge of the ENTIRE building), and she can just like look over you once in awhile. and if you really need help, just ask another nurse on another unit! they'll help you! =/ permission denied. another unit...??? i dont even know where the medicine bin is! GOODNESS!
the unit is chaos. the hospital is chaos. everyone is in the midst of chaos. the patients are crazier than the next, with kids cutting their wrist bleeding, and hitting the staff. The other, we just did several codes. I'm scared of the patients assaulting me here,, and sadly that's the least of my concerns for now.
i'm stressed out, i'm tired. this is not what i pictured it to be. any advice/ encouragement would be helpful.
i can easily say JUST LEAVE, but jobs are sooooo scarce in this part of the country. Half of my classmates didnt even find jobs yet. and i've waited a year and a half. sadly, i turned down 3 other interviews for this job and 2 wonderful without pay training programs. i regret it so much right now,i thought the real way of getting experience was just to get a job, and do it. no more holding your hands and guiding your, but this reality just too harsh. the sad part is, i am using zero nursing skills. i barely get a good glance at them before i have to start my charting for the day. there is nothing such as therapeutic communication or anything. its about making sure they don't kill themselves while on your care, and make sure you chart like crazy so you "cover your ass".
