I just need to vent a bit and maybe for someone to tell me I’m not absolutely awful as an ICU nurse. Story background: 1 year licensed nurse; 1 year experience PCU; new hire to ICU- 4 days in to orientation; PMSing HARD. I just finished my 4th day orienting in a MICU and I am a bit distraught. My patient load wasn’t bad- one intubated and sedated pt experiencing ARDS, and a new DKA admit halfway through the shift. I shouldn’t have felt like I was drowning THIS bad- I’ve had very similar patient loads at my previous job! However, this is a completely new hospital and I’m still figuring out all of the policies and how this hospital likes things done… this last shift was only my second time even touching the charting system so I’m still figuring out where everything is and actively have to remember what needs to be charted at each hour. I don’t even know where to go to put in orders! I have also had different preceptors for all 4 shifts I’ve worked. I told today’s preceptor that I had only taken 1 patient for 1 day and that she was basically a PCU appropriate patient. I had never done an admit and had never taken the whole patient load- so it was a surprise to me when my preceptor for the night disappeared most of the night! This hospital also does DKA completely differently AND my badge doesn’t work yet for unlocking glucometers so I spent half the night hunting down other coworkers to help me log in. The night was busy but it wasn’t AWFUL! However, the person I gave report to happened to be the person that recommended me for the job and she had very high expectations for me… I don’t think that’s true anymore. I completely flubbed report because my brain was a mess trying to figure out what else I needed to do before I left… and I messed up the fluid rate for my DKA pt (which may be a slight blessing in disguise because she definitely would have been hypoglycemic had I gone at a slower rate and we don’t gave D50 in the hospital right now…) - d10 was supposed to go at 50ml/hr but I had it at 150ml/hr because my previous hospitals fluid rate is 200ml/hr for DKA and it just made sense in my head that we’d go at a faster rate to avoid hypoglycemia… Anyways, I just feel stupid and like I should be doing better and I’m trying not to make excuses but also be forgiving of myself because on a typical day I KNOW I could handle this patient load but I feel like trying to learn the hospital protocols and charting is slowing me down SO much so I’m drowning where I typically wouldn’t be. I heard the disappointment in the receiving nurses voice when she was questioning me in report and it just hurt and made me even more disappointed in myself when I already felt like I wasn’t performing up to my standards all night. I guess I also want to know- is it normal to be expected to take a full patient load within the first week of orienting on ICU? This is only my second job so I’m not sure if this is the expectation of me because I have previous work experience.   submitted by   /u/msquack [link]   [comments]