starting my 3rd week on my own tonight!

[labrador4122, RN]

I am starting my 3rd week off orientation tonight, and I feel good.

The first week off orientation I got easy assignments, nothing that I had to be so overwhelmed with. And I thought "wow, this is nice", and I asked someone the reason for this, and since I am new, I will be getting easy assignments for the next couple of months, then I will get harder assignments........

not true!!

The second week, it was my last night, and they game me the patient that needed blood, the patient with a ruptured appendix, + 3 kids with broken legs on tractions!

I was asking questions left and right to my charge nurse and the other nurses because during orientation, I never got patients with tractions. At one point, the traction fell....... I didn't know how to put it together to I had another nurse help me.

I believe that the nurse who made the assignment thinks I am competent!

I am happy of getting these types of patients because this is the only way I will learn.

I wish that orientation would of been more consistent, I told them that in my review of the orientation.

for example: week 1: this and this needs to be done........ and continued thru out the rest of 5 weeks.

and when I was writing my notes with my 2nd preceptor, she used to say to me "why are you writing patient received?" (umm, received at bedside report)...... so I had to get used to not writing "patient received" at the beginning of my note.

anyhow, I wish I won the lottery and didn't have to work.....

but so far, I think it's a good place to be.

last sunday morning it was seven thirty am and 3 of my kids, all with a broken leg, all of them had pain, so I had to give them morphine. so I left at 9am, an hour after my shift was over. because I couldn't leave my kids like that:nono:

I ALWAYS put myself in that situation, I can't imagine having a broken anything or even my family and no one there to give them pain meds.

[bri0209]

I work in a very small hospital and I have been there about 5 months already. I had no orientation and most of the nurses (older ones with a minimum of 14-30 years) were not very helpful. I have been constantly nagged about why did I not know this!!! I cried alot and I was overwhelmed, but I still asked alot of questions. I do not try to attempt what I know I am unclear about. My friend got a job at a larger hospital and went through an extensive orientation. Now he is handling a large number of patients when he has to. I am so glad he had that orientation and a perceptor.