Let me start off with I obtained my LPN in 2016, and I have been gainfully employed in LTC since. My 1st year as a floor nurse, was lets just say a "learning experience". Caring for 20+ patients per shift, coordinating care, learning how to manage different personalities, and honing time managment skills on top of mastering those soft skills and general nursing tasks was a monumental task, to say the least.
After a year, I was promoted into a leadership position as an MDS nurse, and thought it was something I would really enjoy. I loved putting the puzzle together, writing care plans, and making the facility money. However as the years went by, it was evident that in LTC there is no such thing as a definitive job role. I found myself putting in 40 hrs a week in MDS, and another 20 hours a week on the floor, and while at home sitting on the couch, I was writing care plans and calling the facility to ask if a CNA or a Nurse had completed xyz. A salaried role of course ?
I had decided to go back to school and finish my RN, which I did ? Graduated this December and passed boards a few weeks ago!
I knew that I was ready to try something new, as I had no desire to remain in LTC, so I applied to a local hospital. Never being in an acute care setting, I really had no idea where I would want to land, and when asked if there was a specialty that interested me, I really didn't have an answer. I knew I didn't want OB, or LD and other than that I was open to try just about anything, and I was offered a position on a med/surg cardiac floor.
Well, I just completed day two and for the most part it has been all computer based orientation. What little I have seen of the floor, I am beginning to wonder if I have made a grave mistake ? . I know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I remember feeling like this when I was new in LTC, however this feels different. I have not met my preceptor yet, that will be tomorrow, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't freaking out.
During the hiring process, when they were setting my schedule my nurse manager asked me if I had any questions prior to start (I had a two week lag time) and I asked if there was any material I should go over prior, anything I should brush up on? and she had replied, "nope, you'll learn it all here." Fast forward to "here" and I'm thinking, well maybe I should have come to AL and asked, because I am certain that there were some things I should have brushed up on as I hear my 3rd code being called to the floor I am about to start on. ?
Any advice to a not so new nursling that is feeling very very very new?
