i am a "new grad" (it took me over a year to find a job). i did relocate a few hours away for this job. it is at a mega teaching hospital on a med surg floor. i am done with orientation this week. in general, i just feel very overwhelmed. someday i feel ok, other days i just want to run from the floor screaming. i have had over 10 preceptors (you get whoever is there that day, some are experienced and great others are neither). so evaluations are lacking, whenever i ask how i am doing i am told, "great, fine, okay" or some other vague reply. there are many new grads who have just come off orientation or are on orientation now so some shifts have appeared pretty hectic due to a lack of experienced staff at times.
i get overwhelmed when multiple things are going on at once or have to be dealt with within a short time frame. (ex- one pt with a high potassium level who needs stat treatment now- oh and the meds haven't arrived so that will entail a call to pharmacy, an iv is leaking, another pt has sudden onset hypotension, pacu is calling to give report, a md i paged earlier is on the phone, x-ray is ready for some other pt to go get an x-ray done, someone else has to be discharged......and on and on and on............................)i have been thinking of quitting for a long time especially since i had mega doubts about nursing since i have been in school. initially, i wanted to try to stick it out for at least 6 months for my resume's sake, even if i do pursue a career outside of health care eventually. i don't know how long i can keep up with nursing or how long i want to. i am not expecting many replies. i just hope that sending this post out to cyberspace will make me feel better!
With all the short term rehab patients coming into LTC now.. I feel I work on a med-surg unit sometimes.
This is unfortunately part of the job. 3-6pm are the busiest times of my shift and I feel some people just don't get it. I get in at 2:50. Count narcotics. Get report. Try and figure out how many CNAs we have and make their assignments. On a good day its 3:20. On a bad day. Its now after 4. I have to hear about mundane things such as inservices I didn't do, missing signatures.. things i didnt do .. things i did do etc. Fingersticks.. 4:30pm meds, admissions coming in the door.. waiting for flaky md's that call back 1 hour later but you have to wait near the phone because he hangs up after 3 rings. .. still trying to get those fingersticks and meds out.. oh what do you know.. someones on the floor. someone needs a 1-1 .. someone needs something to go to the bathroom.. someone has to go to the bathroom.. cnas are all tied up.. here comes the dinner trays... call the dr and family for resident who fell.. pass trays because theres only 2 cnas for the floor to pass trays...
Oh lord, I never though it was possible for another person to describe my day.
Sometimes it helps to just take 30 seconds to go bang your head against the med room wall...
Figure out who your go to people can be. Look for a veteran nurse who is willing to help drowning newbies. Go to a preceptor or two whose opinion you value and ask them who they go to for help. Then go to those people, explain that there are times when you are overwhelmed, and ask them if they'd mind being a second pair of hands/eyes/ears when you are desperate. There's usually a few people who have been around for some time that are more than happy to help a new grad out whenever they can.
If your floor uses techs/PCTs/PCAs, treat them well...having a good tech who is on your side can make your shift run much more smoothly, no matter how crazy it gets. I see nurses who treat their techs poorly where I work and it shocks me that they don't realize they're just shooting themselves in the foot.
We've all been there...even those nurses who look calm cool and collected put in their time as frazzled crazy overwhelmed newbies at some time.
Welcome to an oppressive nursing! Because med surg on day shift is exactly that! Floor nursing is crazy, physically and emotionally exhausting and stressful. I work nights on med surg and the pace slows down after midnight, but working nights is hard on your body. After some years of experience you'll be faster and more knowledgable but not HAPPIER. Don't trust all these people here telling you that things will be better with time: No they won't. You might just get used to this craziness, but the ratio of patients, workload and stress will never go away. Each time I go to my shift- I feel like a sense of doom, it doesn't matter that I have experience. I'm looking right now for anything outside hospital or outpatient. Floor nursing literally can drain you and suck the life out of you. And yes, if I knew how bad nursing will be, I'll would never go into nursing school. Right now, I'm not in a mood to change careers and go back to school for another profession. I'm just determined to find anything in nursing that will be tolerable.
Welcome to an oppressive nursing! Because med surg on day shift is exactly that! Floor nursing is crazy, physically and emotionally exhausting and stressful. I work nights on med surg and the pace slows down after midnight, but working nights is hard on your body. After some years of experience you'll be faster and more knowledgable but not HAPPIER. Don't trust all these people here telling you that things will be better with time: No they won't. You might just get used to this craziness, but the ratio of patients, workload and stress will never go away. Each time I go to my shift- I feel like a sense of doom, it doesn't matter that I have experience. I'm looking right now for anything outside hospital or outpatient. Floor nursing literally can drain you and suck the life out of you. And yes, if I knew how bad nursing will be, I'll would never go into nursing school. Right now, I'm not in a mood to change careers and go back to school for another profession. I'm just determined to find anything in nursing that will be tolerable.
That is one of the things I am afraid of. That I am giving it 6 months, will still feel poorly, then another 6 months etc till it has been 5 years and I still feel the same way!
I've been at it for 14 years and still don't feel comfortable with the work load. It's too much, and will only get worse.
That's what I am afraid will happen to me. Obvoiusly, I am not yet "comfortable with the work load" by any means. How long should I feel this way before I strongly consider quiting?( I know that no one can tell me this and it is something I have to figure out for myself).....
I will share the WORST day of my nursing career with you. I was an RN at a small community ED. It was a 16 bed emergency department. One doc. I was working with one other nurse, a new grad (who had paramedic experience). That's it. Unit secretary. I had to triage, place in the back, take care of my patients and babysit the new grad. This was the load all at once, with a full waiting room:
1-xanax overdose (the real deal) needing charcoal, leather restraints, blah blah
2. baby less than 3 months old with 105 fever (new grad told me the temp was 98 ax, told him go back and rectal)
3. 5 month old with 35,000 white count
4. 12 year old appendicitis to be consented and sent to OR
5. 42 year old rollover MVA unrestrained driver ejected from vehicle with an open fracture (should have been a trauma alert and skipped our dinky hospital)
Yes, it was me, a new grad, and an ER doc that panicks but does the right thing........ after the 5 second panic episode LOL
I went into the soundproof medroom to get meds, tears started welling up in my eyes and I had a fight or flight response LOL. I thought if i leave I get charged with patient abandonment. If I stay I get sued to negligent homocide LMAO.
I got through the shift by continuously triaging and prioritizing. All attempts to call in administration failed.
Bottom line, the hospital CEO called me the next day and after speaking to me, the director of the ER was fired.
INLPN93
148 Posts
Oh lord, I never though it was possible for another person to describe my day.