Aug 26, 2008, 01:14 am
Hi there,
I've only recently joined up after lurking for awhile!
To answer your Q - Mixed feelings here. So much depends on the individual staff who are rostered on with you each shift and the culture/work ethos on particular wards.
PRO's: I'm very happy with the range of experience that my rotations are providing; General Med, Surgical Specialty + ICU. X4 Study Days which have been really great covering a wide range of topics. Understanding and approachable preceptors (who aren't based on the ward so they aren't caught up in the ward cliques - every single workplace has 'em). The hosp. seems to retain staff well and morale is pretty good considering the size of the place (big).
CONS: I am certainly not the only grad who experiences this at my hosp.; Being allocated the heaviest load of patients on the ward and allocated junior En's to work with while the Senior staff who are long-term friends look after each other with lighter patients and work together with other senior staff because it is what they prefer [this occurs more regularly than not]. Besides being totally unfair - what about sharing some of that golden experience and knowledge around?
Some days cruise by and others nothing seems to go your way. It is really frustrating when you have family after family taking out their frustrations with the doctors and the public health system on YOU, even when they admit that they are actually happy with the nursing care they are receiving. Today was one of those kind of days and ontop of that the previous shift was messy and jobs left unfinished so we started behind the 8 ball. Sometimes there really is only so much one person can physically do in 8 hours even working at nurse speed ahem...pardon me, I meant warp speed.
I don't mean to sound preachy but; Give some thought to how you speak to your colleagues. I've seen some very young grads starting after me stuff it up big time and as we know 1st impressions count, and so many nurses are unforgiving to other nurses. The opposite is also true though - if you ask politely and don't butt in or act like your workload is more important than others - EVERYONE, yes, everyone is happy to answer a question; it's their chance to shine and show how much they know! Lol!!!
That said - DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK Q' s!!! I had a scary experience recently with a newly Enrolled Nurse who is overly confident and sincerely wants to prove herself. She wasn't sure what to do when she had post-op pt with a pulse Oximeter reading of 85%, so she charted the obs and did nothing. She didn't think to sit the pt up from their slumped position in bed, check pt's pain score or check the reading for accuracy or even apply Oxygen. Later with the same (poor) patient she supplied a emesis bag as requested by the patient and pulled the curtains around and proceeding to go and sit down - didn't tell a soul or check to see if any anti-emetics were written up for that patient! Eeek!!! Suffice to say, I'm very wary when I have to work with this person and feel I must always be checking their work as the RN I'm responsible in the end.
Surely a competent person (EN or RN) knows their scope of practice and the limits of their knowledge base and who to turn to for answers/guidance when help is required??? Common sense really is not common.
Still not sure what area I'd like to end up in yet... 1 more rotation to go, so I'm reserving my decision for now.
WJMA - Are you a current grad or a 3rd yr student? It would be great to hear some of your story...
