Thank you so much for your kind words! I think my SBP was 180+ my first float!

I'm glad it's helping! You're in learning mode - they know that newbies will come in needing quite a bit of support. It feels like a gut punch to not be where you thought you would be, so I think that really ramps up anxiety and insecurities. And if they do think you're not making progress, they're going to work with you to try to figure it out. To be blunt, it is VERY expensive to hire a nurse and train them only to just kick them to the curb. They're going to work with you rather than out of the blue let you go. And if for some reason that did go down, I would view that as a blessing in disguise because I would never want to work for an employer with leadership that poor. YOU'VE GOT THIS!

@@freshrn Haha thanks this makes me feel better : ) I've been on my own now for about 9 days and I'll say my anxiety level has gone WAY down. It was almost debilitating right at first and I was wondering how I could possibly sustain this. I saw on a different website that that anxiety goes away in a year I'm like no way I'll make it that long feeling the way I do, but it seems like its lessened a bit, and my tolerance is much better. The breathing excercises REALLY help. Although I still have situations arise that I am totally new to, at least I feel like I am getting used to the routine of the unit and its only one or two new things a night which is manageable and not 100 hahaha. But I still have that healthy fear haha.

You got this! So glad it's helped!

@@freshrn Hi! Almost 6 months later, I am feeling better about my job knowledge and performance. I am also realizing that med-surg. may not be the type of nursing that I am cut out for. I am struggling to keep myself in the game. Any advice?

I'm so glad! :-)

Glad it was helpful!

I'm glad it helped - you've got this!

Hi there! Appreciate your kind words. Lots of serious emotions. Here are all of my med-surg resources: www.freshrn.com/med-surg-nursing/ and here are all of my ortho ones: www.freshrn.com/ortho-nursing/

I do! As nurses, we tend to get hyper focused on doing every single thing perfect. We beat ourselves up with any misstep, misunderstanding, inefficiency, or mistake. If it’s not perfect, then it’s not good enough. I get that sentiment because we’ve got the lives of our patients in our hands. But, this is crippling, unsustainable, and unhealthy. If the nurses we want caring for are emotionally resilient, empathetic, calm, and confident - the path to their development must encourage this, not undermine it. If we tell people they’re only good enough if they’re perfect, and thus make their learning process riddle with fear, judgement, and ridicule (whether we do that to others or ourselves) we are actively working against it. You will have a mistake. You will do many things inefficiently. You will have many missteps. My encouragement to you is to not have your head down working so hard to be perfect that you miss your wins. When you finally figured out how to prime the tubing and program the pump for IV fluids on the primary line and an antibiotic on the secondary line - acknowledge that win. Don’t have a response to yourself that so many of us do - “Oh wow you FINALLY did something right. Great…” Allow yourself to feel happiness and joy when you work on something and get it right. Please do not immediately attempt to balance that with fear or criticism. You learned something. You made progress. Count that win. And when you find that you have made a mistake... take a few deep breaths, recollect yourself and recall what you do know in these situations. Do the practical things in the moment you need, and process it later. And if someone is trying to break you down, belittle you, or ruin your confidence because you aren’t immediately grasping and verbalizing everything or made an honest mistake - take a mental step back outside or the situation. Try not to internalize their harsh words into your perspective of yourself, and give yourself a moment to respond like this person did. Breathe, recollect, recall - learn what you need to, and move forward. I go through that in my nurse residency program (the New Nurse Master Class) that you can find at FreshRN.com/courses. And I have a podcast episode on dealing with mistakes: www.freshrn.com/episode-18-nurses-make-mistakes/ I hope this helps!

@@freshrn beautifully said

Bri, this is so common and and normal phase of development but we don't talk about it enough. it's going on my list of podcast episodes to make! please keep giving yourself permission to be an advanced beginner. keep asking questions, asking for clarification, finding new experiences. you can't know everything after a year, especially in ICU. med-surg is different since the pts are stable, and at about a year you can feel a bit more confident in yourself. But in ICU you're still getting used to it all. rest assured this truly is normal and that feeling that you should know better by now is probably based in unrealistic expectations. Changing the expectations likely will ease those feelings of lacking confidence.

Why thank you Alice! :-)

Honestly, yes this is normal. You'll start your new job and dive deep into the very, very specific things you need to know for it. I would ask your preceptor what the top 5-10 diagnoses/chief complaints of people on your unit have, and then crack open my nursing school info to brush up only on those specifics.

Listen to my podcast! It's FreshRN.com/podcast and it's on my YT channel as a playlist. All of my advice is there.