Yearling

I wasn't a 'natural' with details like you mention, either, but I learned how to be.

The most unhelpful thing you can say is "I'm just terrible with details". You can't be and be a good nurse :) Needless to day I felt like a complete idiot for my first two years. Literally.

Making mistakes is human. Making the SAME mistakes over and over again is a kind of incompetency and needs to be addressed.

Is there a 'pattern' in the mistakes, besides being bad with details? Are you in too big of a hurry? Are you prioritizing your tasks appropriately?

For instance, your patient has CHF and renal failure. You aren't going to spend four minutes listening to bowel tones, considering all the other systems you have to check. You can walk in a patients room and SEE off the bat the person is eating and chatting with family, say hello to everyone, observe their coloring, breathing pattern while talking and eyeball their foley bag and then move to the more critical patient who needs you NOW. You have 'assessed' this patient in less than two minutes, enough to move to a sicker patient and leave fully assessing the CHFer for a bit later.

It's not so much a matter of 'too much detail' but HOW you prioritize the details. It could take you three or four minutes to do a hit and run mini-assessment, enough to get something on the chart. Check ABC's, IV line, foley draining, pumps need take very little time. Keep your mind on the task you are doing rather than all the other stuff you know you have to do.

A nondetail person is usually good at the big picture, eventually, with experience. Until then, prioritize. It's about the only thing you can do with a chaotic patient load.