I am officially on my own as an ED nurse. No preceptors, no mentors... just me. And thank goodness there are lots of supportive nursing staff that are there willing to help out.
And boy did I need it tonight. I had one lady on bipap and another working his way towards the ICU, as well as a confused aggressive patient and a medicine patient.
By the way, in the hospital where I work there is no support staff to do your vitals for you, or to help people to the commode or do the bedpan stuff. It's all on the nurses. So not only was I prepping for an adenosine cardioversion, I was also wiping people's asses, getting vitals, prepping beds, reassuring confused people, etc.
It was a great experience to learn to organize, but still I have my doubts about my shift.
Questions run in my mind: Did I miss something that we could have noted earlier about the patient going to ICU now? Is there something subtle that I missed? How can I improve for next time? What would I have changed?
Am I ready to be an ED nurse? I think I am.. I have a lot of knowledge now that I'll carry with me to inform my decisions. Do I still need to learn? Absolutely. I have spent a year in Emerg nursing, and there is still more to learn.
I have absolutely no idea how some nurses can carry a patient load of 12:1. No idea. Kudos to them.
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About Me
- miss-elaine-ious
- I'm Elaine. After some soul searching and doing an MSc, I switched gears and completed a BSc in Nursing and am working as an Emergency Nurse. This blog started at the end of nursing school, and has followed my life ever since. Any patient story depicted in this blog is not a real person, but a mixture of the many I see daily as a nurse.
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3 comments:
I can't believe you don't have CNAs or techs! They are crucial to our facility, couldn't do it without them.
The fact that you are questioning yourself in my mind is a good thing. It proves that you care and that you strive for excellence. Keep learning from your experiences, making improvements, you will continue to be a wonderful nurse! It is the pursuit of excellence and improvement that makes you wonderful.
We have 'patient services' people who transport to xray, do the stocking/cleaning of rooms, and can help give a patient a boost in bed as long as there is an RN in the room. That's it. No direct patient care.
In my small rural hospital, there wasn't even someone to do that, again the nurses did it!
Thanks for the compliment and the confidence
Part of being good in any profession is knowing what you don't know.
You're going to do just fine in the ED.
Just don't let people talk you into doing things that you're not comfortable doing.
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