Small town OB nurse!

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So I live in a small town and I have been working ob for a year and a half at the tiny hospital in my town. We only do about 10 deliveries a month. I don't feel like I am getting good experience. We do everything at my hospital...NBN, PP, L&D. There is usually only 2 nurses a shift and we do our own ER checks. I thought it would be good to start slow and really learn it but at the same time i am not getting any experience. I am now in the "charge" position (which I didn't want but was forced upon me)..and it scares me to death! What should I do.....

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Specializes in OB, Med/Surg, Ortho, ICU.

I work in a small critical access hospital, though yours is probably smaller. I wound up doing OB because we were very short on OB nurses. My training was "trial by fire," which I would neither recommend or allow ever again. Is there funding to send you to a larger hospital to train? If the hospitals both are willing to accept liability involved, it is valuable experience. It is your license, and you have every right to protect it. I can understand in a rural area how you can feel forced to take a charge position that you didn't want (no one else there?). Are there no other opportunities to look into? If not, it may give you an opportunity to go to your supervisor saying, "I'm hard to replace, is there any way to train me better to protect this hospital and my license from liability related to an error?". Good luck!

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Med-Surg.

I am in a similar position, small rural hospital that only has 10-15 deliviers a month and only 2 nurses per shift, mostly LVNS. They send us to a big city hospital to train for a week and it helped A TON!

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Thanks guys. My manager keeps saying she is going to send me to a larger hospital to train but she just keeps putting it off. There are a couple other girls that started right before me and they feel the same way. I think we just really need to keep on insisting that they send us. They did send us to that conference in Dallas, Tx. I didn't help me....

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I worked for a small hospital that did 12-24 deliveries a month and was left there at night BY MYSELF as the only OB nurse in the house!! My back up was the house supervisor who had NRP! I did that craziness for 6 years when I finally woke up and realized that my license was on the line and the nurse manager would never do anything about the horrible work conditions. So give your manager the option of sending you somewhere to learn or you'll give her your resigination!

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