Wanting to be a better nurse...

[mjs2118]

Hello all, I am new the allnurses.. I have been an RN since January and have been working as a nurse on a medical floor at a fairly large hospital in my area. Although I have learned tons since beginning work as a nurse 5 months ago, and I continue to learn each day, I can't help but to feel overwhelmed and to feel like sometimes I know nothing! Sometimes I go all night taking care of my patients, running from here to there trying to get things done, and at the end of the night I feel like I know nothing about my patients unless I get time to look through their charts! And that's a very rare occurrence. It's like I can't keep it all in my head. Sometimes I can't even keep my patients straight in my head unless I take time to really think. And I work with a lot of nurses who have been doing this a while and it's like they can recall everything about each of their patients, and know what the doctor will order for a patient before they even do just because they are so experience and I really envy that. I don't know if this type of thing will come with time, but I really hope so because I want to be the best nurse I can be and I feel like I have a loooot of learning to do. Any kind of words of encouragement would be awesome! And it's nice to join you all on allnurses!

[minnymi]

most of us don't get to spend the time that we want to....but i'm talking about just having casual conversations when you're in the room doing other things. you'd be surprised what little tid bits of information make other things 'click' for you later.

keep a "cheat sheet" like others have suggested, do what you've been doing, and get to know your patient whenever you do have the chance.

don't worry that when something goes wrong it's going to be all on YOU to know every single that that has ever happened and to spit it out in chronological order. that's what charts are for. that's what teams are for. if/when something goes wrong there will be so many people show up to help and you'll be surprised at what you actually do remember that you thought you didn't even know.