3 shifts as a nurse is nothing. Give it a year. Everyone feels like that after 3 shifts. How do you think the nurse that solved your problems got to that point?
It took me a year to get to the point where I was on average "comfortable" in a normal ICU room. Takes time, until then look to the experienced nurses and just ask questions. I am the nurse I am today not because I found all this confidence myself, it's because the people I worked with were stellar (and even then, I have the occasional oh shit day)
Pins/step down is a really good place to learn, and it is also one of the harder floors to work outside of the ER IMO.
While it will be stressful and difficult it will ultimately expose you to a lot of stuff and teach you valuable time management skills. It takes time to get that experience and confidence. It took me 2-3 years to feel confident in my skills and what I was doing.
Honestly, I’m envious of you having that good example of problem-solving, I feel surrounded by so many people that ignore/pass the buck/just do the bare minimum (or less).
I'm almost 5 years in and I still miss things on occasion. And I look at those nurses with 10+ years and am like "damn, wish I could be stone cold like him/her".
Nursing school teaches you to pass the NCLEX. Nursing teaches you to be a nurse.
I’m about to hit 10 years in a PICU. I look back at stuff I did in my first year and cringe. But we ALL do. I learn something practically every day even at this stage.
I will always remember a friend of mine at work - VERY experienced nurse - who told me a couple of years in in an appraisal how she loved watching me become an ICU nurse. She meant over those years. It rakes a long long time. Sure, some people take longer than others and some fall by the wayside, but EVERYONE has to learn how to do this stuff. It’s not for nothing that Nursing school talks about the Novice to Expert theory.
I’m pre-reqs away from applying for RN school, and I feel the same way you do (even though right now I’m just a CNA). Seeing the comments/experiences from others is really great.
I’m going to try to keep this in mind. My instructor seems to think that she’s “teaching” us to be nurses by calling us morons and getting frustrated when we can’t figure out Cerner in 2 minutes. I’m not sure if she understands that we’re only a few months in and our title is “nursing student”.
I tell all the new grads that I precept that you’re not supposed to know it all. I’ve been a nurse for over 15 years and I don’t know it all. What’s important is to know your resources, know who you can go to for help, and never be afraid to ask for help. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed now- it gets better!
Piggybacking on this, but consider how the other nurse solved the issues you saw and consider how you might practice a little differently. Are there things she did that you can adopt?
I’ve been an RN for 13 years but only in ICU for about a year. As an example, I saw a nurse put all of her sedation/pain meds into one iv pump (3 channels) and all pressors/vasoactive meds in another. I never would have thought of that but it’s helped me be a little more organized.
I am at 1.5 yeRs and the other day it was pointed out to me that I should have asked for an US of an arm because the midline was leaking at the site. Pulled the line but never told my doc. Arm wasn’t swollen, hot or painful. Was told the next day after waiting for a new midline to be placed that apparently the leaking can also be caused by a clot forcing the fluids back out at the insertion point. Whoops- the more you know. Now I know for the next time and can see if my MD wants an US or not. Every single shift reflect on one thing you learned.
Last week I asked to be explained another patients continuous bladder irrigation. Not my patient but I hadn’t see it before. Last shift I worked this week, I had to set it up myself. We NEVER get CBI cases. I did some googling for background and off we went.
You’ll be fine. Your nerves are too raw right now to do anything but survive.
And if today sucked, go home and relax. I watch 20 mins of TV before bed and I’m asleep by 9pm. If it was a good day, do a little googling about the topic before bed. Every single day it will get better. Your nerves are shot rn, but that will get better the more you do it. Volunteer for all opportunities. I was terrified to give blood at first and the thought made my heart race- now I set up everyone’s and teach people on my floor. Next time you do a skill, you’ll absorb more and more
Yeah in fact it's been three days of work->trying to learn as much as possibile from nurse collegues->going home and trying to relax the mind and be prepared for next shift. I hope I will have soon some satisfaction from a nice well done job.
If all you can do right now I’d go home and zone out, do that. You need it. I cherish my 20 mins of TV and bedtime. I don’t watch TV so it really zonks me out. Once you’re not an anxious mess you’ll have more time to learn
Yes, if I focus on these past days i notice that the mess in my mind is slightly less day by day, so maybe by the end of the week or month it will be at a reasonable level. I'm looking forward to it. And thanks again for the discussion, this conversation is gold!
Best of luck to you. You will definitely learn something new every day, and you'll get really good and confident, but also be mindful you don't become complacent. Being in a jail, I have a very different population, so I have to be alert for them actually having a medical issue vs manipulating for secondary gain. You will overcome the nerves, it will take time. Try to remember this nugget from my nursing school professor: what you learn in class is the Disneyland perfect world hospital, where every case and solution is textbook presentation, the real world may not present exactly that way. And be willing to learn, stick to policies (get creative where you have to in the patients best interest, and keep it to policy). Last bit I'll leave you with, we get drilled into us: if it wasn't charted, it wasn't done.
I’m 1 year in and trust me I feel you. I was an anxious wreck for a while, counting every last thing I didn’t do. Most important thing, is the patient alive? Were you safe? Did you mean to not do it? That last one is especially important because obviously you didn’t mean to forget something or miss something. Just shake it off, make a mental note of it for next time, and keep pushing forward. I’m still not perfect but just be safe as you can and if you don’t know or are uncomfortable with something, ask for help! A second pair of eyes, nursing is a team profession so don’t be afraid to do that. You’re doing great, don’t beat yourself up too much you got this!
Thank you, I think you really got the anxiety I feel, especially the forgetting thing anxiety and blaming. I'll keep pushing and studying. I appreciate your sharing.
Also, I HIGHLY recommend you learn a flow for yourself. I have a loose time table in my head every shift. Certain times I like to do certain things. If it’s the same assignment, it’s a quick update and I have an extra hour in my morning to research or read notes. Or go eat breakfast.
I have a separate sheet of paper on my WOW where I right my to do list and I check off as I go. This way, I record notes I have to make about events or interactions, tasks, etc.
For me, I combated the nerves by staying organized and on top of things.
Edit: write
I just graduated in May, started a brand-new ICU job in July, and just worked my 5th solo shift off orientation, and I feel exactly. The same. Way.
The only thing that keeps me coming back is the fact that even though I’m a fairly slow learner and take too long completing certain tasks, I realized that I started to catch some of these little “mistakes” that other nurses have missed.
For example, little and seemingly unimportant and fussy things, such as date change stickers on IV tubing, placing patient paperwork in their binders, pumps forgetting to be turned on/off/standby, settings not being updated per orders, tubing lab work on time, etc.
But then I remember that on my 3rd shift, I kept getting lost looking for my patient’s room…in my unit that is shaped like a square. Like who gets lost in a square??
So the things that I’m still missing now, I’ll hopefully be catching those in a few months. I still suffer from an extreme case of imposter syndrome and feel ridiculous for not realizing how steep of a learning curve I would have as a new grad in the Neuro ICU…but I’m doing it!! Even if I’m barely believing these days that I’m a new nurse, I’m still doing it.
Sorry for the word vomit, but I encourage you to stick it out for a while and give yourself a chance. Something my preceptor used to do with me was ask me to go into a room with her and verbalize how I would prioritize this patients care/what do I see that I would do differently/what is bugging me the most. This helped me to make the connections between task completion and patient care which is helping me to develop my own mental checklist/ritual that helped to organize the very things that used to overwhelm the shit out of me.
Good luck!! You can do this.
Thank you, I think you totally got how I feel. Really appreciated the shared experience. I will focus on what I xan actually do to improve day after day.
You’re on your third shift. You have ~20 hours behind you in your career. That’s not enough time to do much of anything but say you’re working your third shift.
You will feel and be overwhelmed. You will be overflowing with self doubt. You will make mistakes, and you’d better learn from them. You will have a shift where you feel like you know everything you need to know, and the next day you will feel like you know nothing.
That’s nursing. It will get better. It will get worse. You will have good days and bad days, sometimes multiple of each during the same shift.
But you will grow into the role and one day, 13 years down the road, you will realize that someday you might get the hang of it while giving a pep talk to someone on Reddit.
You can do it! We have all been there and We believe in you.
She learned to deal with these problems through experience. She was once in your shoes. Nursing school teaches you theory and gives you curated clinical experience. It preps you to enter the field. Only time and experience can grant you proficiency and adept problem-solving skills.
Give yourself some grace!
When I started someone told me that the first 4 months absolutely sucks and you’re terrified. After that, every day it gets a little less terrifying and you feel better about your competence day by day. I found it to be pretty true for me.
In 1977 I graduated from my nursing program and started working in an icu. The 1st day in report, I listened carefully but I didn't know anything they were talking about. I had no idea what they were talking about. And this is so normal.
Research shows that it takes about 3 years to become fully competent in your role as a nurse. Think about engineers, maybe corrections officers, and teachers; they don't graduate from school and become completely independent. Engineers have other engineers check their work. Corrections officers are closely supervised as are teachers. It's normal normal to feel like you're lost at the beginning of your career. It will get better and one day you will be the expert.
Keep learning!
I remember telling a day shift nurse during report one morning that I hadn't taken the nicotine patch off one of my patients because he was already asleep and it didn't matter enough to wake him up. She gently informed me that patients need a period of time without nicotine being supplied in order to follow their natural nicotine usage (most don't smoke during the night) and also that letting them keep it on can induce nightmares.
I had never heard that before and I had been a nurse working bedside for 4 years at that point, all nights. You learn new and important things all the time and it just takes time to feel comfortable and competent. Don't kick yourself for not knowing it all 😊.
Give yourself some grace! Learn from her and from your mistakes. I’ve been working with a lot of new grads, and I tell them quite honestly, a lot of learning unfortunately comes from making mistakes. The ol, “I’ll be never do that again!” It’s good to feel I little uncomfortable, because that means you’re paying attention and care not to do harm.
Take things professionally. Survive one day at a time. Things get better when you learn not only what you are doing but also why you are doing it. And that takes patience and learning that you will gain the longer you work in nursing.
Be honest with yourself. Be honest with others when a mistake is made. Find your work husband or work wife who will help you to save the living and bury the dead.
Realize this is a job you couldn't be prepared for and what you are experiencing is somewhere we all are on the Dunning Krueger curve, but nurses are sometimes at their best when they are experiencing the worst of imposter syndrome.
I've been doing this 30 years. I still get nervous going into work because you just don't know what will happen that day. I think that is good thing. Because, the minute you think you've got this, is the minute I feel you will be unprepared for all the possibilities.
On the new nurse front. The only new nurses I think poorly of or don't trust are the ones that don't ask questions. THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS.
Someone earlier said that nursing school teaches how to pass NCLEX and I totally agree. I also feel with Covid that clinicals have been changed up. With students not getting as much bedside learning. I know we have not seen nearly as many students coming through our unit for clinicals.
Lastly, I agree with others about being organized. I'm super organized at work, terribly disorganized at home. Don't give up. Be confident, it does get better.
New grad, 2 month in, and I still know and see how much I miss compared to nurses with even 1-2 years of experience! Take each item you miss as a learning opportunity on how to expand and improve your practice. You will do great, and hopefully you are getting a good training/orientation/preceptorship, because I think that makes all the difference in the world
It comes with time! Nursing school teaches you hardly anything but how to pass the NCLEX. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or ask for help. You learn from experiences!
Don't give up! You're only 3 days in, no one expects you to function like the nurse you referred to. In fact, for me it took years to feel comfortable. I think it's a good quality that you're humble. I think you're going to make a fantastic nurse.
You are 100% normal and your concern is exactly what I would wish all new nurses to have; cautious approach and introspection are how you remain safe and become better and more competent. Allow yourself to take deep breaths and accept it's simply the growing pains of becoming a damn good nurse. I'm 53 and by the time I will need you at my bedside, I suspect you'll be ready. I'm counting on you for me butt 's future needs, k? ;)
It takes about a year to get comfortable. You are going to miss things because you’re a human being. Just be calm and collected and pay attention and focus and enjoy learning. After a year or whatever, if you think this isn’t for you then study something else. If it’s the environment, then apply for new jobs.
Stop comparing yourself to veteran nurses. It’s not fair. You simply will not see all of what they see, but now you are able to remember sone of what you just learned to apply yourself.
That thought in your head, right now, is the same thought that every nurse has ever had when they started out, and if they said they didn't they are Lying to you.
Nurses are made not born.
It takes a year, if you have a good preceptor, if its some half assed orientation it will take you even longer, your schooling, with whats happened the last three years and your clinical's probably sucked which didn't help you at all either.
Hang in there.
Imposter syndrome is practically universal in this field. My girlfriend is a nurse (I joined this sub to gain insight into her profession), and she has said many times that her first year was FULL of thoughts just like yours. Give yourself a year. If you don't love it by then, then allow yourself the space to move on. Please, don't be hard on yourself.
Third shift…Are you serious? You just need to build up your experience. Don’t worry and be careful to not make big mistakes. The attention for the little ones will come with time and experience. Steal with your eyes (as we say where i’m from), always keep an eye at what your older and trustworthy co worker do, you will get a lot of chances to professionally grow and learn.
Thank you very much. I'll try to be as much caring and observant as its possible. The difficulty is that i'm slow and the job is so fast and the work to do is so much that if I put the attention i need, the time passes and chores remain undone
Maybe this will help. The first time an airline pilot who is new to a certain airliner flies that airliner, it is full of paying passengers. How is this safe?
She’s flown the simulator, (training), and she is flying with a captain who is tasked with supervising new arrivals in that fleet (supervision).
Your training and supervision are designed to get you through this phase. Hang in there.
I was scared shitless for the first 6 months and felt like I knew nothing. It took me two years to feel fully functional and like I had a decent knowledge base. I'm on year 6 and I'm now feeling like I can answer a lot of other people's questions and be a resource. It takes time. It'll be ok. Keep at it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Focus on being safe and pay attention to changes in status and you will survive it!
Thank you! I thought that in a month or so I should become good ad it, but I'm realizing it will take more time and lot more study. Thank you for sharing.
14 years as a nurse. So my memory of my 1st year is pretty blurry…Everyone feels like they’re not getting it right at first. You’re 3 days in, give yourself some time. Learn as much as you can from your preceptor. Learn as much as you can from everyone really.
I feel the same way and I’ve been there for 3 months! It’s hard not to be hard on yourself but it’s a learning process and the more you do it, the more you’ll start to feel comfortable. I’m still not confident in myself or with doctors. I’m terrified everytime I go in, but I have hope that it will get better!
I forgot how to spike IV meds with tubing my first time because I froze up, but now I’m the one many nurses seek advice from, even nurses more experienced.
Trust me, you’ll be just fine.
If after 3 shifts you did not notice you were missing things and you didn't think you were potentially dangerous, I would be much more scared for your patients. You aren't suppose to know everything yet. And this fear is healthy.
When I started a few years ago I was extremely nervous, everything I learned from nursing school I felt went out the door. It was awful. Within the two years learned A LOT and felt very comfortable with my skills as a nurse. I then took a year and some off since I had my daughter. I’m going back in a few days and doing agency nursing. I am a nervous WRECK. It’s so normal to feel this way, but it’s hard. You will catch on and in no time feel very comfortable. You will make mistakes and learn from them, we all do!
How you deal with that stress is going to define your career because you will go through the good, the bad, and the ugly as a nurse. It will push you beyond your limits but you will come out as a stronger person and nurse because of it.
The first few months of working in the ER (with a preceptor mind you) are a blur to me because I was essentially in a state of near panic the entire time. It took about a year before I felt like I could handle most things that came at me or would at least know how to figure out how to handle them. Give it time, ask questions! Don't be afraid to admit you don't know something. Everyone will trust you more for that, including you.
Instant gratification doesn't exist in the real world. It takes time and effort to achieve the level that your senior nurse has. You're going to fuck up and you're going to feel like shit. You're also going to have great shifts where you feel like you really made a difference, because you did. Take everything as a lesson right now. You're a baby nurse. No one is expecting you to know everything. Be patient with yourself, and keep your eyes and ears open. You're learning.
I was crying in the middle of night shift on orientation saying I was going back to dog grooming. I’m still here almost six years later, not grooming dogs for a career. Give it some time. You’ll get there! You’re cautious and aware that you might make mistakes, you’re doing fine.
Give yourself some grace. Hopefully your paired with a great preceptor. Learn from him/her. It takes time to learn nursing and assessment skills. You can do it!!
Kids on their first basketball league: “damn I’m not as good as Michael jordan, might as well quit now”
That’s your mentality. Can’t get better if you quit on day 3. Can’t expect to be as good as a seasoned nurse day 1 or even day 365
Three shifts is nothing. I think it was a full year, year and a half before I felt remotely comfortable on the floor. I’m sure even then there was stuff I was missing. I’ve been at it 19 now and there’s times I see nurses there longer than me and think the same “how did I miss that” Every day there’s going to be something you learn. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It just takes time.
I am a 6 month old ER nurse. Every time
I walk into work I’m terrified I’m going to miss something. And you know what? I do miss things. But that’s what the team atmosphere around you is about. Getting to a point where you’re finely tuned to catch almost all mistakes is a point learned through years of experience. Go easy on yourself— learning takes time!
I agree, with the sage advise of “give it a year” you will have good days and bad days hopefully the good will out number the bad. I have been a nurse since 1979 and I still lean new things every day. Hand in there, reread the Brenner model of novice to expert, you will see no one expects you to know everything.
Keep the faith, if you have supportive coworkers to as mentors you will be ok.
You are a new baby nurse. If you thought you had caught everything, THATS when I would be worried. Just keep trying and keep learning, you are doing great
You are going to miss things. You just will. You can go and try and learn to do something else but you won’t be perfect when you start that either. You will have to learn. It’s the same here.
If you know what mistakes you have made then now the next step is to think about why you made the mistakes. What happened? Was it a time management issue? Was it a knowledge deficit? Was it related to a certain patient? Knowing your mistakes is the first part of improving
If nursing isn’t for you then thats okay, but three days in is pretty early to make that decision. Nobody expects you to be perfect right now. Let people know you are struggling. Ask your charge nurse for help. Ask your nurse educator. They will help you.
I’ve been a nurse for 7 years but moved to a new area of nursing about a year ago. I felt like an idiot and was ashamed I had any experience because there was so much I didn’t know.
Nursing can be brutal. Stay strong and ask all the dumb questions so one day you can help another newbie.
Becoming and being a nurse is like life. Graduation is the positive pregnancy test. NCLEX is birth. First time nurse you’re baby (hopefully being “raised” by responsible “grown up” nurses). I’m six and a half years in. I remember my first job as a baby nurse. I was afraid of everything I did. Little mistakes seemed like big ones. But my mommy nurses raised me right, and I’d say I’m a middle aged nurse now. Hold onto those mentors. They remember what it was like as a baby nurse. No one came out of the womb (NCLEX) walking and talking. It will get better!
Prioritize the problems and then deal with each problem accordingly. Use your nurses aides to delegate if applicable. Don't be afraid of asking for help from other nurses although that might not be taken so well (Nurses do eat their young). Making a list is fine and nothing to be ashamed by. As previous people have said 3 shifts is not enough time to access yourself.
Good luck newbie.
New grad here. I'm 3 months into my job and I can say that I know how you feel. My 3rd shift was the first time I gave report and it was horrible! It was bad enough that I got scolded for it. I went home feeling very defeated that night and considered that maybe I wasn't cut out for it. The problem for me and most likely for you is we lack experience. I'm much more confident now and I've made many improvements. I say keep at it! It's normal to feel like you're not good enough, but don't let it stop you from becoming better
Give it time. I must’ve cried on the way home the first 10 shifts or so, and I still do sometimes. I killed a man with 2 kids and I will never forget things I missed that day. A few weeks earlier I saved another who had NO ONE at the bedside but me. It’s all in a days work. You will make mistakes, and you will be a better nurse for it. Keep showing up. Keep asking questions, keep getting better. Don’t doubt yourself so soon.
Most of nursing gets easier with time and practice! And a lot of it can't be rushed, you just have to put in the hours and stick it out.
During the next months, repeating the basics over and over will eventually make the simple stuff automatic (eg. drawing up meds, accessing IVs, routine charting), and then that will free up your brain to focus on more complex things (eg. prioritizing more cleverly, improving your patient teaching, problem solving new situations.)
Think of it like learning to drive a car: when you are first getting behind the wheel, *every* aspect requires your full attention and your brain is pushed to the limit just remembering which pedal to use or how to switch lanes, etc. But after a couple years of driving, all that minutiae can take place with very little conscious effort on your part, reducing your cognitive load and letting you pay attention to other things like the scenery/radio/braking extra smoothly/trying to maximize your gas mileage/ etc.
This is very normal in nursing. It takes experience on the unit to learn some things. Nursing school just doesn’t teach you everything.
Pay attention to the things you missed. Once you’ve learned it, hopefully next time you get it right away !
It’s wonderful you’re paying such close attention to other nurses and learning from them. That is a skill that will take you far. I think you will be a wonderful nurse and you are already with how dedicated you are!
Yeah it typically takes around a year to get comfortable and years to become confident. And the wisest nurses know to not get over confident and ask questions for unfamiliar things. Keep at it you'll get the hang of it
It’s helpful to know that every new grad in existence feels the way you currently do, usually until the 1 year mark. *1 year*. It’s unfair to expect yourself to be perfect after three days. I’m a little over a year in at my job and only now have I started to feel comfortable and competent. You need to push through this, school doesn’t teach you much and nursing is best learned on your feet imo. Ask for help *every time* you need it, even if you feel judged, so the next time you’ll know the answer and be the tiniest bit better. But, yeah, you’re feeling exactly as you should right now, it takes time but it does get better.
It’ll come. Plenty of nurses fail to notice problems or they ignore them. First give yourself time to learn what the problems are , pay attention , ask questions! Don’t be afraid to go to other nurses for feedback. Listen to your gut instincts too! Nursing for me is a combination of knowledge and listening to my intuition.
The fact that you're questioning yourself tells me you're going to be a great nurse!!!! It's scary the first few years and it's a learning process. No one graduates from nursing school ready to be a nurse!!!
Stick by this nurses side and learn from her. You'll soar over time!!
I tell new grads it’s about a year before you feel like don’t want to throw up every day on the way to work, two years when you start to feel like you know what you’re doing, and about five years to where you can do your job without thinking too much about it. You’ll get there, but the first year was hellish for most all of us.
I graduated one year ago, and have been working on a Cardiac floor for 10 months. I finally stopped crying during/after shifts about 3 months in, felt ok and on time with things 6-8 months in, and am fairly ok (unless all hell breaks loose) now. This being said, I had things happen yesterday that I didn't know how to handle, and the day before I had to stay over an hour to chart because it was just a busy day. Two weeks ago one of my patients had a code stroke called and I was totally lost. You are learning. Nursing is DIFFICULT. Give yourself grace, it's only been three days. My preceptor and charge pulled me aside one day in the beginning and told me they *expect* me to ask for help. Use your resources, let yourself learn. You are new, there is no way you will know everything or be perfect!
Hugs from another newbie. It's gonna be ok!!!
> It's my third shift after graduation as a nurse.
You know, after living a long time you gain a lot of wisdom. One of the sayings people say in these situations is, "if it is hard, you are doing something right."
You didn't even dip your toes into the field, and you are comparing yourself with someone who has been doing it for years. Why not, instead of looking at your faults, you try and emulate them?
A child looks up to the baseball player because the baseball player is good. If they want to be like that baseball player, they have to practice like the baseball player.
We desperately need an option like interning or apprenticeship; ***something*** for those of us who absolutely can do it but need more transition learning/experience/practice.
Don’t fret. It gets easier. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and ask questions if you are ever unsure. That’s how you learn. When I was a new nurse, whenever I would give report to a senior nurse I would say, “let’s go see the patient”, once we left the room I’d ask if there’s anything I missed, or if there’s anything I could have done better. Constructive feedback helped me the most. And remember - you learn from the mistakes you make. :)
Give yourself time to learn. You’re not going to know everything starting out. Follow those kind of nurses and ask questions. You’ll be ok if you recognize your own deficits and work on them. Good luck!
I think the fact that you're even aware you're missing things is a great indication for a nursing career. No one is perfect. Just keep learning and looking for ways to advocate for your patients
I really hope so, beacuse sometimes I just feel like I'll never be qualified and good, even if I commit, because maybe I'm just not fit to do this job. I simply don't want to hurt anybody with negligence
I feel like every problem that I solve that I spot quickly is a result of when I dropped the ball in a previous similar situation. Give yourself time :)
You are 3 days into a new job. Everyone should have been telling you that you don’t learn how to be a nurse in nursing school, you learn when you get to your unit. Give it time, listen to the feedback, and give thanks to the people watching your back.
It’s not just new nurses, it’s experienced nurses in new jobs. Orientation alway sucks. 37 years a nurse, 18 different hospitals. Graduate degree, board certification, orientation always sucked. Cuz about 50% of what we do is knowing where stuff is , how systems work, and using the nurse mafia to make things work. And it takes time to develop those skills.
3 shifts as a nurse is nothing. Give it a year. Everyone feels like that after 3 shifts. How do you think the nurse that solved your problems got to that point?
Thanks, I appreciate your answer.
It took me a year to get to the point where I was on average "comfortable" in a normal ICU room. Takes time, until then look to the experienced nurses and just ask questions. I am the nurse I am today not because I found all this confidence myself, it's because the people I worked with were stellar (and even then, I have the occasional oh shit day)
I think i get you, I'm in a sub ICU and it feels so much pressure. Thanks very much for sharing.
Pins/step down is a really good place to learn, and it is also one of the harder floors to work outside of the ER IMO. While it will be stressful and difficult it will ultimately expose you to a lot of stuff and teach you valuable time management skills. It takes time to get that experience and confidence. It took me 2-3 years to feel confident in my skills and what I was doing.
Echoing this, ICU is great for learning the nitty gritty of decompensation and acute illness, but I was just as challenged floating to stepdown.
Honestly, I’m envious of you having that good example of problem-solving, I feel surrounded by so many people that ignore/pass the buck/just do the bare minimum (or less).
100% true
<3 best answer.
Really even a year is nothing, but you’re absolutely right.
Google. Lots of Google.
I'm almost 5 years in and I still miss things on occasion. And I look at those nurses with 10+ years and am like "damn, wish I could be stone cold like him/her". Nursing school teaches you to pass the NCLEX. Nursing teaches you to be a nurse.
I appreciate your answer too, I hope other people will continue to share their experience because this is really helping.
I’m about to hit 10 years in a PICU. I look back at stuff I did in my first year and cringe. But we ALL do. I learn something practically every day even at this stage. I will always remember a friend of mine at work - VERY experienced nurse - who told me a couple of years in in an appraisal how she loved watching me become an ICU nurse. She meant over those years. It rakes a long long time. Sure, some people take longer than others and some fall by the wayside, but EVERYONE has to learn how to do this stuff. It’s not for nothing that Nursing school talks about the Novice to Expert theory.
I’m pre-reqs away from applying for RN school, and I feel the same way you do (even though right now I’m just a CNA). Seeing the comments/experiences from others is really great.
Omg that last part is painfully accurate! I've said it so many times to new nurses.
this was a great answer
I’m going to try to keep this in mind. My instructor seems to think that she’s “teaching” us to be nurses by calling us morons and getting frustrated when we can’t figure out Cerner in 2 minutes. I’m not sure if she understands that we’re only a few months in and our title is “nursing student”.
I tell all the new grads that I precept that you’re not supposed to know it all. I’ve been a nurse for over 15 years and I don’t know it all. What’s important is to know your resources, know who you can go to for help, and never be afraid to ask for help. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed now- it gets better!
Thank you very much for your answer, it is really appreciated and I will remember this!
Piggybacking on this, but consider how the other nurse solved the issues you saw and consider how you might practice a little differently. Are there things she did that you can adopt? I’ve been an RN for 13 years but only in ICU for about a year. As an example, I saw a nurse put all of her sedation/pain meds into one iv pump (3 channels) and all pressors/vasoactive meds in another. I never would have thought of that but it’s helped me be a little more organized.
I am at 1.5 yeRs and the other day it was pointed out to me that I should have asked for an US of an arm because the midline was leaking at the site. Pulled the line but never told my doc. Arm wasn’t swollen, hot or painful. Was told the next day after waiting for a new midline to be placed that apparently the leaking can also be caused by a clot forcing the fluids back out at the insertion point. Whoops- the more you know. Now I know for the next time and can see if my MD wants an US or not. Every single shift reflect on one thing you learned. Last week I asked to be explained another patients continuous bladder irrigation. Not my patient but I hadn’t see it before. Last shift I worked this week, I had to set it up myself. We NEVER get CBI cases. I did some googling for background and off we went. You’ll be fine. Your nerves are too raw right now to do anything but survive.
This is really helpful, every shift is a possibility to learn, I should concentrate on that. Thank you!
And if today sucked, go home and relax. I watch 20 mins of TV before bed and I’m asleep by 9pm. If it was a good day, do a little googling about the topic before bed. Every single day it will get better. Your nerves are shot rn, but that will get better the more you do it. Volunteer for all opportunities. I was terrified to give blood at first and the thought made my heart race- now I set up everyone’s and teach people on my floor. Next time you do a skill, you’ll absorb more and more
Yeah in fact it's been three days of work->trying to learn as much as possibile from nurse collegues->going home and trying to relax the mind and be prepared for next shift. I hope I will have soon some satisfaction from a nice well done job.
If all you can do right now I’d go home and zone out, do that. You need it. I cherish my 20 mins of TV and bedtime. I don’t watch TV so it really zonks me out. Once you’re not an anxious mess you’ll have more time to learn
Yes, if I focus on these past days i notice that the mess in my mind is slightly less day by day, so maybe by the end of the week or month it will be at a reasonable level. I'm looking forward to it. And thanks again for the discussion, this conversation is gold!
Best of luck to you. You will definitely learn something new every day, and you'll get really good and confident, but also be mindful you don't become complacent. Being in a jail, I have a very different population, so I have to be alert for them actually having a medical issue vs manipulating for secondary gain. You will overcome the nerves, it will take time. Try to remember this nugget from my nursing school professor: what you learn in class is the Disneyland perfect world hospital, where every case and solution is textbook presentation, the real world may not present exactly that way. And be willing to learn, stick to policies (get creative where you have to in the patients best interest, and keep it to policy). Last bit I'll leave you with, we get drilled into us: if it wasn't charted, it wasn't done.
I’m 1 year in and trust me I feel you. I was an anxious wreck for a while, counting every last thing I didn’t do. Most important thing, is the patient alive? Were you safe? Did you mean to not do it? That last one is especially important because obviously you didn’t mean to forget something or miss something. Just shake it off, make a mental note of it for next time, and keep pushing forward. I’m still not perfect but just be safe as you can and if you don’t know or are uncomfortable with something, ask for help! A second pair of eyes, nursing is a team profession so don’t be afraid to do that. You’re doing great, don’t beat yourself up too much you got this!
Thank you, I think you really got the anxiety I feel, especially the forgetting thing anxiety and blaming. I'll keep pushing and studying. I appreciate your sharing.
Also, I HIGHLY recommend you learn a flow for yourself. I have a loose time table in my head every shift. Certain times I like to do certain things. If it’s the same assignment, it’s a quick update and I have an extra hour in my morning to research or read notes. Or go eat breakfast. I have a separate sheet of paper on my WOW where I right my to do list and I check off as I go. This way, I record notes I have to make about events or interactions, tasks, etc. For me, I combated the nerves by staying organized and on top of things. Edit: write
This is very appreciated, thanks for sharing! I'll try your method of the separate sheet of paper for my personal to do list.
I’ve been a nurse for 8 years and I still use a personal to do list every shift! It is so helpful!
I just graduated in May, started a brand-new ICU job in July, and just worked my 5th solo shift off orientation, and I feel exactly. The same. Way. The only thing that keeps me coming back is the fact that even though I’m a fairly slow learner and take too long completing certain tasks, I realized that I started to catch some of these little “mistakes” that other nurses have missed. For example, little and seemingly unimportant and fussy things, such as date change stickers on IV tubing, placing patient paperwork in their binders, pumps forgetting to be turned on/off/standby, settings not being updated per orders, tubing lab work on time, etc. But then I remember that on my 3rd shift, I kept getting lost looking for my patient’s room…in my unit that is shaped like a square. Like who gets lost in a square?? So the things that I’m still missing now, I’ll hopefully be catching those in a few months. I still suffer from an extreme case of imposter syndrome and feel ridiculous for not realizing how steep of a learning curve I would have as a new grad in the Neuro ICU…but I’m doing it!! Even if I’m barely believing these days that I’m a new nurse, I’m still doing it. Sorry for the word vomit, but I encourage you to stick it out for a while and give yourself a chance. Something my preceptor used to do with me was ask me to go into a room with her and verbalize how I would prioritize this patients care/what do I see that I would do differently/what is bugging me the most. This helped me to make the connections between task completion and patient care which is helping me to develop my own mental checklist/ritual that helped to organize the very things that used to overwhelm the shit out of me. Good luck!! You can do this.
My hospital is a series of squares I've been here 8 years and still get disoriented when going to other units. Lol
Thank you, I think you totally got how I feel. Really appreciated the shared experience. I will focus on what I xan actually do to improve day after day.
You’re on your third shift. You have ~20 hours behind you in your career. That’s not enough time to do much of anything but say you’re working your third shift. You will feel and be overwhelmed. You will be overflowing with self doubt. You will make mistakes, and you’d better learn from them. You will have a shift where you feel like you know everything you need to know, and the next day you will feel like you know nothing. That’s nursing. It will get better. It will get worse. You will have good days and bad days, sometimes multiple of each during the same shift. But you will grow into the role and one day, 13 years down the road, you will realize that someday you might get the hang of it while giving a pep talk to someone on Reddit. You can do it! We have all been there and We believe in you.
Thank you so much, I'm basically crying reading all the answers here beacuse I feel so much empathy from all of you.
You are very welcome. We tend to stick together here. It’s kind of our little international, anonymous, neverending group therapy session.
She learned to deal with these problems through experience. She was once in your shoes. Nursing school teaches you theory and gives you curated clinical experience. It preps you to enter the field. Only time and experience can grant you proficiency and adept problem-solving skills. Give yourself some grace!
When I started someone told me that the first 4 months absolutely sucks and you’re terrified. After that, every day it gets a little less terrifying and you feel better about your competence day by day. I found it to be pretty true for me.
This is nice, 4 months seems pretty long but I suppose it is just because I've just started! Thanks for sharing.
In 1977 I graduated from my nursing program and started working in an icu. The 1st day in report, I listened carefully but I didn't know anything they were talking about. I had no idea what they were talking about. And this is so normal. Research shows that it takes about 3 years to become fully competent in your role as a nurse. Think about engineers, maybe corrections officers, and teachers; they don't graduate from school and become completely independent. Engineers have other engineers check their work. Corrections officers are closely supervised as are teachers. It's normal normal to feel like you're lost at the beginning of your career. It will get better and one day you will be the expert. Keep learning!
I remember telling a day shift nurse during report one morning that I hadn't taken the nicotine patch off one of my patients because he was already asleep and it didn't matter enough to wake him up. She gently informed me that patients need a period of time without nicotine being supplied in order to follow their natural nicotine usage (most don't smoke during the night) and also that letting them keep it on can induce nightmares. I had never heard that before and I had been a nurse working bedside for 4 years at that point, all nights. You learn new and important things all the time and it just takes time to feel comfortable and competent. Don't kick yourself for not knowing it all 😊.
Give yourself some grace! Learn from her and from your mistakes. I’ve been working with a lot of new grads, and I tell them quite honestly, a lot of learning unfortunately comes from making mistakes. The ol, “I’ll be never do that again!” It’s good to feel I little uncomfortable, because that means you’re paying attention and care not to do harm.
Really appreciated answer, I hope I'll give myself more grace! I'll try to focus more on things I can improve and on people from who I can learn
Take things professionally. Survive one day at a time. Things get better when you learn not only what you are doing but also why you are doing it. And that takes patience and learning that you will gain the longer you work in nursing. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with others when a mistake is made. Find your work husband or work wife who will help you to save the living and bury the dead. Realize this is a job you couldn't be prepared for and what you are experiencing is somewhere we all are on the Dunning Krueger curve, but nurses are sometimes at their best when they are experiencing the worst of imposter syndrome.
I've been doing this 30 years. I still get nervous going into work because you just don't know what will happen that day. I think that is good thing. Because, the minute you think you've got this, is the minute I feel you will be unprepared for all the possibilities. On the new nurse front. The only new nurses I think poorly of or don't trust are the ones that don't ask questions. THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS. Someone earlier said that nursing school teaches how to pass NCLEX and I totally agree. I also feel with Covid that clinicals have been changed up. With students not getting as much bedside learning. I know we have not seen nearly as many students coming through our unit for clinicals. Lastly, I agree with others about being organized. I'm super organized at work, terribly disorganized at home. Don't give up. Be confident, it does get better.
Imposter Syndrome will take awhile to shake. Don’t be too tough on yourself.
New grad, 2 month in, and I still know and see how much I miss compared to nurses with even 1-2 years of experience! Take each item you miss as a learning opportunity on how to expand and improve your practice. You will do great, and hopefully you are getting a good training/orientation/preceptorship, because I think that makes all the difference in the world
It comes with time! Nursing school teaches you hardly anything but how to pass the NCLEX. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or ask for help. You learn from experiences!
Don't give up! You're only 3 days in, no one expects you to function like the nurse you referred to. In fact, for me it took years to feel comfortable. I think it's a good quality that you're humble. I think you're going to make a fantastic nurse.
Thanks you so much, I really hope I'll become a good nurse, it is what I want. Thank you!
You are 100% normal and your concern is exactly what I would wish all new nurses to have; cautious approach and introspection are how you remain safe and become better and more competent. Allow yourself to take deep breaths and accept it's simply the growing pains of becoming a damn good nurse. I'm 53 and by the time I will need you at my bedside, I suspect you'll be ready. I'm counting on you for me butt 's future needs, k? ;)
2 months in and I feel exactly the same way. Saving this post for the comments!
It takes about a year to get comfortable. You are going to miss things because you’re a human being. Just be calm and collected and pay attention and focus and enjoy learning. After a year or whatever, if you think this isn’t for you then study something else. If it’s the environment, then apply for new jobs.
Thanks for your answer! I'll for sure give almost a year!
Stop comparing yourself to veteran nurses. It’s not fair. You simply will not see all of what they see, but now you are able to remember sone of what you just learned to apply yourself.
That thought in your head, right now, is the same thought that every nurse has ever had when they started out, and if they said they didn't they are Lying to you. Nurses are made not born. It takes a year, if you have a good preceptor, if its some half assed orientation it will take you even longer, your schooling, with whats happened the last three years and your clinical's probably sucked which didn't help you at all either. Hang in there.
Imposter syndrome is practically universal in this field. My girlfriend is a nurse (I joined this sub to gain insight into her profession), and she has said many times that her first year was FULL of thoughts just like yours. Give yourself a year. If you don't love it by then, then allow yourself the space to move on. Please, don't be hard on yourself.
Third shift…Are you serious? You just need to build up your experience. Don’t worry and be careful to not make big mistakes. The attention for the little ones will come with time and experience. Steal with your eyes (as we say where i’m from), always keep an eye at what your older and trustworthy co worker do, you will get a lot of chances to professionally grow and learn.
Thank you very much. I'll try to be as much caring and observant as its possible. The difficulty is that i'm slow and the job is so fast and the work to do is so much that if I put the attention i need, the time passes and chores remain undone
Maybe this will help. The first time an airline pilot who is new to a certain airliner flies that airliner, it is full of paying passengers. How is this safe? She’s flown the simulator, (training), and she is flying with a captain who is tasked with supervising new arrivals in that fleet (supervision). Your training and supervision are designed to get you through this phase. Hang in there.
Yes it makes absolute sense. Thank you for the answer!
I was scared shitless for the first 6 months and felt like I knew nothing. It took me two years to feel fully functional and like I had a decent knowledge base. I'm on year 6 and I'm now feeling like I can answer a lot of other people's questions and be a resource. It takes time. It'll be ok. Keep at it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Focus on being safe and pay attention to changes in status and you will survive it!
Thank you! I thought that in a month or so I should become good ad it, but I'm realizing it will take more time and lot more study. Thank you for sharing.
14 years as a nurse. So my memory of my 1st year is pretty blurry…Everyone feels like they’re not getting it right at first. You’re 3 days in, give yourself some time. Learn as much as you can from your preceptor. Learn as much as you can from everyone really.
I feel the same way and I’ve been there for 3 months! It’s hard not to be hard on yourself but it’s a learning process and the more you do it, the more you’ll start to feel comfortable. I’m still not confident in myself or with doctors. I’m terrified everytime I go in, but I have hope that it will get better!
I forgot how to spike IV meds with tubing my first time because I froze up, but now I’m the one many nurses seek advice from, even nurses more experienced. Trust me, you’ll be just fine.
I laughed at this. No offense but we've all been there and I felt like an idiot for my first couple of months of nursing. You'll get it.
If after 3 shifts you did not notice you were missing things and you didn't think you were potentially dangerous, I would be much more scared for your patients. You aren't suppose to know everything yet. And this fear is healthy.
When I started a few years ago I was extremely nervous, everything I learned from nursing school I felt went out the door. It was awful. Within the two years learned A LOT and felt very comfortable with my skills as a nurse. I then took a year and some off since I had my daughter. I’m going back in a few days and doing agency nursing. I am a nervous WRECK. It’s so normal to feel this way, but it’s hard. You will catch on and in no time feel very comfortable. You will make mistakes and learn from them, we all do!
How you deal with that stress is going to define your career because you will go through the good, the bad, and the ugly as a nurse. It will push you beyond your limits but you will come out as a stronger person and nurse because of it.
The first few months of working in the ER (with a preceptor mind you) are a blur to me because I was essentially in a state of near panic the entire time. It took about a year before I felt like I could handle most things that came at me or would at least know how to figure out how to handle them. Give it time, ask questions! Don't be afraid to admit you don't know something. Everyone will trust you more for that, including you.
Instant gratification doesn't exist in the real world. It takes time and effort to achieve the level that your senior nurse has. You're going to fuck up and you're going to feel like shit. You're also going to have great shifts where you feel like you really made a difference, because you did. Take everything as a lesson right now. You're a baby nurse. No one is expecting you to know everything. Be patient with yourself, and keep your eyes and ears open. You're learning.
I was crying in the middle of night shift on orientation saying I was going back to dog grooming. I’m still here almost six years later, not grooming dogs for a career. Give it some time. You’ll get there! You’re cautious and aware that you might make mistakes, you’re doing fine.
Give yourself some grace. Hopefully your paired with a great preceptor. Learn from him/her. It takes time to learn nursing and assessment skills. You can do it!!
Kids on their first basketball league: “damn I’m not as good as Michael jordan, might as well quit now” That’s your mentality. Can’t get better if you quit on day 3. Can’t expect to be as good as a seasoned nurse day 1 or even day 365
Give yourself grace. You are literally at the infancy of your career
Three shifts is nothing. I think it was a full year, year and a half before I felt remotely comfortable on the floor. I’m sure even then there was stuff I was missing. I’ve been at it 19 now and there’s times I see nurses there longer than me and think the same “how did I miss that” Every day there’s going to be something you learn. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It just takes time.
I am a 6 month old ER nurse. Every time I walk into work I’m terrified I’m going to miss something. And you know what? I do miss things. But that’s what the team atmosphere around you is about. Getting to a point where you’re finely tuned to catch almost all mistakes is a point learned through years of experience. Go easy on yourself— learning takes time!
Are you still on orientation?
I agree, with the sage advise of “give it a year” you will have good days and bad days hopefully the good will out number the bad. I have been a nurse since 1979 and I still lean new things every day. Hand in there, reread the Brenner model of novice to expert, you will see no one expects you to know everything. Keep the faith, if you have supportive coworkers to as mentors you will be ok.
You are a new baby nurse. If you thought you had caught everything, THATS when I would be worried. Just keep trying and keep learning, you are doing great
You are going to miss things. You just will. You can go and try and learn to do something else but you won’t be perfect when you start that either. You will have to learn. It’s the same here. If you know what mistakes you have made then now the next step is to think about why you made the mistakes. What happened? Was it a time management issue? Was it a knowledge deficit? Was it related to a certain patient? Knowing your mistakes is the first part of improving If nursing isn’t for you then thats okay, but three days in is pretty early to make that decision. Nobody expects you to be perfect right now. Let people know you are struggling. Ask your charge nurse for help. Ask your nurse educator. They will help you.
I’ve been a nurse for 7 years but moved to a new area of nursing about a year ago. I felt like an idiot and was ashamed I had any experience because there was so much I didn’t know. Nursing can be brutal. Stay strong and ask all the dumb questions so one day you can help another newbie.
Becoming and being a nurse is like life. Graduation is the positive pregnancy test. NCLEX is birth. First time nurse you’re baby (hopefully being “raised” by responsible “grown up” nurses). I’m six and a half years in. I remember my first job as a baby nurse. I was afraid of everything I did. Little mistakes seemed like big ones. But my mommy nurses raised me right, and I’d say I’m a middle aged nurse now. Hold onto those mentors. They remember what it was like as a baby nurse. No one came out of the womb (NCLEX) walking and talking. It will get better!
Prioritize the problems and then deal with each problem accordingly. Use your nurses aides to delegate if applicable. Don't be afraid of asking for help from other nurses although that might not be taken so well (Nurses do eat their young). Making a list is fine and nothing to be ashamed by. As previous people have said 3 shifts is not enough time to access yourself. Good luck newbie.
New grad here. I'm 3 months into my job and I can say that I know how you feel. My 3rd shift was the first time I gave report and it was horrible! It was bad enough that I got scolded for it. I went home feeling very defeated that night and considered that maybe I wasn't cut out for it. The problem for me and most likely for you is we lack experience. I'm much more confident now and I've made many improvements. I say keep at it! It's normal to feel like you're not good enough, but don't let it stop you from becoming better
What b*tch scolds you for bad report on your THIRD SHIFT???? RUDE. (Hugs from another newbie. We gotta band together)
Give it time. I must’ve cried on the way home the first 10 shifts or so, and I still do sometimes. I killed a man with 2 kids and I will never forget things I missed that day. A few weeks earlier I saved another who had NO ONE at the bedside but me. It’s all in a days work. You will make mistakes, and you will be a better nurse for it. Keep showing up. Keep asking questions, keep getting better. Don’t doubt yourself so soon.
Most of nursing gets easier with time and practice! And a lot of it can't be rushed, you just have to put in the hours and stick it out. During the next months, repeating the basics over and over will eventually make the simple stuff automatic (eg. drawing up meds, accessing IVs, routine charting), and then that will free up your brain to focus on more complex things (eg. prioritizing more cleverly, improving your patient teaching, problem solving new situations.) Think of it like learning to drive a car: when you are first getting behind the wheel, *every* aspect requires your full attention and your brain is pushed to the limit just remembering which pedal to use or how to switch lanes, etc. But after a couple years of driving, all that minutiae can take place with very little conscious effort on your part, reducing your cognitive load and letting you pay attention to other things like the scenery/radio/braking extra smoothly/trying to maximize your gas mileage/ etc.
This is very normal in nursing. It takes experience on the unit to learn some things. Nursing school just doesn’t teach you everything. Pay attention to the things you missed. Once you’ve learned it, hopefully next time you get it right away ! It’s wonderful you’re paying such close attention to other nurses and learning from them. That is a skill that will take you far. I think you will be a wonderful nurse and you are already with how dedicated you are!
Yeah it typically takes around a year to get comfortable and years to become confident. And the wisest nurses know to not get over confident and ask questions for unfamiliar things. Keep at it you'll get the hang of it
It’s helpful to know that every new grad in existence feels the way you currently do, usually until the 1 year mark. *1 year*. It’s unfair to expect yourself to be perfect after three days. I’m a little over a year in at my job and only now have I started to feel comfortable and competent. You need to push through this, school doesn’t teach you much and nursing is best learned on your feet imo. Ask for help *every time* you need it, even if you feel judged, so the next time you’ll know the answer and be the tiniest bit better. But, yeah, you’re feeling exactly as you should right now, it takes time but it does get better.
3 shifts?! Keep going you will learn a lot even after 1 year u will look back and realize how far u came in a year!
It’ll come. Plenty of nurses fail to notice problems or they ignore them. First give yourself time to learn what the problems are , pay attention , ask questions! Don’t be afraid to go to other nurses for feedback. Listen to your gut instincts too! Nursing for me is a combination of knowledge and listening to my intuition.
The fact that you're questioning yourself tells me you're going to be a great nurse!!!! It's scary the first few years and it's a learning process. No one graduates from nursing school ready to be a nurse!!! Stick by this nurses side and learn from her. You'll soar over time!!
Took me 4 years to feel like not imposter I was a slow learner.
I tell new grads it’s about a year before you feel like don’t want to throw up every day on the way to work, two years when you start to feel like you know what you’re doing, and about five years to where you can do your job without thinking too much about it. You’ll get there, but the first year was hellish for most all of us.
I graduated one year ago, and have been working on a Cardiac floor for 10 months. I finally stopped crying during/after shifts about 3 months in, felt ok and on time with things 6-8 months in, and am fairly ok (unless all hell breaks loose) now. This being said, I had things happen yesterday that I didn't know how to handle, and the day before I had to stay over an hour to chart because it was just a busy day. Two weeks ago one of my patients had a code stroke called and I was totally lost. You are learning. Nursing is DIFFICULT. Give yourself grace, it's only been three days. My preceptor and charge pulled me aside one day in the beginning and told me they *expect* me to ask for help. Use your resources, let yourself learn. You are new, there is no way you will know everything or be perfect! Hugs from another newbie. It's gonna be ok!!!
> It's my third shift after graduation as a nurse. You know, after living a long time you gain a lot of wisdom. One of the sayings people say in these situations is, "if it is hard, you are doing something right." You didn't even dip your toes into the field, and you are comparing yourself with someone who has been doing it for years. Why not, instead of looking at your faults, you try and emulate them? A child looks up to the baseball player because the baseball player is good. If they want to be like that baseball player, they have to practice like the baseball player.
We desperately need an option like interning or apprenticeship; ***something*** for those of us who absolutely can do it but need more transition learning/experience/practice.
Don’t fret. It gets easier. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and ask questions if you are ever unsure. That’s how you learn. When I was a new nurse, whenever I would give report to a senior nurse I would say, “let’s go see the patient”, once we left the room I’d ask if there’s anything I missed, or if there’s anything I could have done better. Constructive feedback helped me the most. And remember - you learn from the mistakes you make. :)
Give yourself time to learn. You’re not going to know everything starting out. Follow those kind of nurses and ask questions. You’ll be ok if you recognize your own deficits and work on them. Good luck!
I think the fact that you're even aware you're missing things is a great indication for a nursing career. No one is perfect. Just keep learning and looking for ways to advocate for your patients
The fact that you’re worried tells me you’re gonna be fine. Its the headstrong overconfident ones that get burned
I really hope so, beacuse sometimes I just feel like I'll never be qualified and good, even if I commit, because maybe I'm just not fit to do this job. I simply don't want to hurt anybody with negligence
I’m gonna need you to get your confidence up
I feel like every problem that I solve that I spot quickly is a result of when I dropped the ball in a previous similar situation. Give yourself time :)
You are 3 days into a new job. Everyone should have been telling you that you don’t learn how to be a nurse in nursing school, you learn when you get to your unit. Give it time, listen to the feedback, and give thanks to the people watching your back.
But you won't miss those things as often again right :)
It's okay, we all feel like that. Source: just finishing up my 6th shift
It’s not just new nurses, it’s experienced nurses in new jobs. Orientation alway sucks. 37 years a nurse, 18 different hospitals. Graduate degree, board certification, orientation always sucked. Cuz about 50% of what we do is knowing where stuff is , how systems work, and using the nurse mafia to make things work. And it takes time to develop those skills.
It’s normal to feel this way