Practically a Nurse: Life as a New Graduate RN

By Medora McGinnis, RN, whose last post for this blog was “Don’t Cling to Tradition: A Nursing Student’s Call for Realism, Respect.” Medora is now a pediatric RN at St. Mary’s Hospital in the Bon Secours Health System, Richmond, Virginia, as well as a freelance writer. As a nursing student she was the Imprint Editor for the National Student Nurses Association.

Life as a new graduate RN has been . . . confusing. While my peers seem to have it all together, for the last five months since graduating I’ve been perplexed—what do I do with myself, if I don’t have to stress out and study everyday? Well, of course I have my five kids to keep me busy, an amazing new job as a pediatric RN, and my husband who almost forgot what I look like.

Still, I feel like I should be cramming for something, memorizing something, or at least triple-tasking. I’m stressed that I’m not stressing out. Maybe I just dreamt that I graduated . . .

Here is a little of my backstory: I graduated in May from a three-year diploma program, as part of the very last class in that historic Virginia program, Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing. It is now a four-year BSN program. They are affiliated with the large […]

2016-11-21T13:09:13-05:00September 25th, 2012|career, Nursing, students|2 Comments
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Passion and Fear: Signs of a Kindred Nursing Spirit

Florence Nightingale in Crimean War, from Wikipedia Commons

By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular contributor to this blog. Her essay, “The Love Song of Frank,” was published in the May issue of AJN.

“It’s not that we want something bad to happen; we just want to be there when it does.”

One of my colleagues recently saw that phrase on a T-shirt, and it perfectly echoes the sentiment of the ICU nurses I work with. We’re prepared for crises, primed for instability—and the lower acuity patients who have been populating the ICU lately leave many of us restless and discontented. We start to miss the dramatic cases, the incredible saves and miracles; we miss using our skills. We do see the irony of being in the awkward position of wishing for trauma patients, yet not actually wishing ill on anyone.

I haven’t always embraced unstable patients. When I was a new nurse I simultaneously dreaded yet was drawn to the instability of the ICU. I remember the early morning drives into work, a time of quiet anticipation filled with a gnawing fear that I’d make a mistake or be inexcusably inadequate at a crucial time.  I’d pray to gods above to be good enough, to be up to the tasks of the day; I clearly recall, more than once, taking report on an unstable patient and getting physically sick. Dramatic, I know, but born […]

2016-11-21T13:09:21-05:00September 12th, 2012|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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A Role to Live Up To

By Kinsey Morgan, RN. Kinsey is a nurse who lives in Texas and currently works in the ICU in which she formerly spent three years as a CNA. Her previous posts on working as a new nurse can be found here.

Now in my sixth month as a new nurse, I find every day that there is something new to learn, figure out, or adjust to. The constant stimulation and challenge is part of what makes me love being an ICU nurse.

Recently I was exposed to the simple yet powerful fact that being a “unit nurse” carries more weight than I’d thought. During a code blue on the medical–surgical floor a few weeks ago, I was performing CPR when it became necessary to initiate a dopamine drip to support a failing blood pressure.

One of the medical–surgical nurses spiked the bag and connected the tubing and proceeded to tap me on the shoulder and ask me if he had correctly entered the dosage of dopamine into the IV pump. Time stood still for a split-second while I contemplated the weight of this question. Though my mind and body quickly returned to the task at hand, the implications of that question haven’t left me yet.

The nurse who asked has been an RN for several years and has a lot more experience than I have. In reflection, I am honored and humbled by his trust. Not having encountered vasoactive drugs very often in his practice, this nurse […]

2016-11-21T13:10:35-05:00February 28th, 2012|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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That Acute Attention to Detail, Bordering on Wariness…

By Kinsey Morgan, RN. Kinsey is a new nurse who lives in Texas and currently works in the ICU in which she formerly spent three years as a CNA. Her last (and first) post at this blog can be found here.

It seems that nursing schools across the world subscribe to certain mantras regarding the correct way to do things. Different schools teach the same things with utmost urgency. Hand washing is one of the never-ending lessons that comes to mind. How many times do nursing students wash their hands while demonstrating the correct way to perform a procedure? I vividly remember actually having to be evaluated on the skill of hand washing itself.

Another of the regularly emphasized points of nursing school is double-checking. One of my first clinical courses required students to triple-check patient identification before giving medications. We were to look at the medication administration record, the patient’s wristband, and then actually have the patient state their name.

As a new nurse learning several new computer systems for charting, etc., I’ve noticed that the old attention to detail, ground into my soul during my school days, now seems easy to overlook, since computers do so much of the work. Of course, computer charting and electronic MARs* have simplified tasks and made time management much less daunting. But sometimes I worry about the hidden cost of such improvements.

I intend, vow, resolve to make an effort to remain aware of how […]

2016-11-21T13:11:23-05:00November 21st, 2011|Nursing, Patients|2 Comments
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Realizations of a New Nurse #1: I Am Now the Educator

image via Wikipedia

By Kinsey Morgan, RN. Kinsey is a new nurse who lives in Texas and currently works in the ICU in which she formerly spent three years as a CNA.

In nursing school, there is a growing push to educate future nurses on the amazing breadth of roles within the nursing profession. As a student, you are in some way exposed to the role of nurse as leader, advocate, healer, educator, team player, and researcher. Even this list is not exhaustive. These roles are certainly vital and important and worth teaching about in school.

As a brand new nurse, I haven’t personally encountered all of these roles yet, but there is one in particular that I encounter—and embody—every day: that of educator.

One of the most humbling realizations I’ve had since recently becoming a nurse is that I am now the educator. I’m glad to know that there are other nurses around me, as well as many resources from which to glean knowledge, but I am daily faced with the fact that people now look to me for answers. There are times when I feel outside myself, for while I give correct answers, hearing myself giving them is a little surreal. I’m sure these feelings subside with time, but I hope that I always remain somewhat in awe of the amount of trust my title elicits.

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2016-11-21T13:11:31-05:00November 7th, 2011|career, nursing perspective, students|4 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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