One_More_HotDog

I have a bad preceptor. And the more I think about it, the more upset I get. As a new grad in the ICU I shouldn’t be left alone with critical patients in some of the situations she’s left me alone in. She critiques me after anything happens instead of guiding me beforehand or even just having a discussion afterward. Blames me for things that are not my fault or anyone’s fault. And just overall acts like she can’t be bothered when I ask her questions. I know I have to ask for a new preceptor but I haven’t been able to sit down with my educator because our schedules don’t line up and I don’t know if it’s better as an in person conversation or an email conversation. It’s been 5 terrible shifts

Hello everyone. I’m a new grad ICU nurse. I’m 8 weeks into my orientation and I’m really struggling. I started out with two preceptors but my main preceptor was pulled to orient another new grad. My main preceptor now is a little rough around the edges. She leaves me to take on the assignment and pops in with little remarks or questions. I don’t mind being given the space to do things on my own but there have been a few times where I felt like I needed a guidance and she’s just not there. I feel like I have to remind her how new I am and just how much I haven’t seen before.

Last week we were trying to extubate our patient with no success. I had only ever extubated one other patient and it w

Hello everyone. I’m a new grad ICU nurse. I’m 8 weeks into my orientation and I’m really struggling. I started out with two preceptors but my main preceptor was pulled to orient another new grad. My main preceptor now is a little rough around the edges. She leaves me to take on the assignment and pops in with little remarks or questions. I don’t mind being given the space to do things on my own but there have been a few times where I felt like I needed a guidance and she’s just not there. I feel like I have to remind her how new I am and just how much I haven’t seen before.

Last week we were trying to extubate our patient with no success. I had only ever extubated one other patient and it

I’ve been in the ICU for 3 months and I’m just feeling discouraged. Some days I do really well other days I’m an absolute idiot. It’s really frustrating. I know everyone says it’s normal but I just feel so behind. I initially had two preceptors when I started and my main one was great, super supportive, really there for me. My secondary preceptor is very rough around the edges. Unfortunately my main preceptor got taken away to precept a new nurse who is related to a charge nurse on our unit. So I’m left with the grumpy one. I only have her for one month until I go to nights and get someone else, but it’s going to be a long month. She’s… very judgy.

Our ICU has also had rather low acuity pa

I’m a new grad on orientation in the ICU. One thing I really am not liking is putting in orders. Our ICU doctors expect us to put in orders. They’ll pop into a room list off all the things they want and I have a tendency to just wait for them to show up in epic but my preceptors are constantly reminding me that we put them in. The only time the doctors put in their own orders is during rounds, anything else we have to do. This stresses me out. We also have a doctor that straight up leaves the hospital when he’s on for weekends and we have to do everything. He’ll come back for emergencies but our nurses will start a crashing patient on all sorts of drips and fluids before he shows up. I am no

Hello all, I’m a new grad in the ICU and I hate presenting my patients in rounds. It’s nerve wracking and half the time I feel like the doctor is barely listening to me anyway. My biggest struggle with them is coming up with things I need for my patients. I know it’ll come with time and experience but the best I can come up with right now is prn pain meds and pt/ot consults if they’re not ordered already. I feel like I come up with things like an hour or so after rounds because my mornings are spent trying to get all my assessments and meds done so I don’t really think of what I need yet. For example I had a very sick patient the other day who had 5 peripherals and honestly could have used a

My family and I are green card holders. we renewed them together 10 years ago, went for our biometrics appointments together and just had to renew again. For whatever reason I’m the only one that has to go for biometrics. Does anyone know of a reason for this?

I’m back again! Another random question.

I had a patient 3 days in a row. He had a perfed bowel, they did a colon resection with colostomy placement. It looked ok the first day. The second day it was dark, almost brown. Had the general surgery NP come look at it and she said it was congested but would have the surgeon come check. He checked it twice. Didn’t take the bag off just poked around it and said “yep it’s pink, looks good!”. Sir in what world. I didn’t know what to do about it. Brought it up to our ICU doc twice during rounds, he was cool with it if surgery was cool with it. I however was not cool with it. What else could I have done to press the issue?

Random ICU question here. I had a patient today that we intubated, started him on Prop and it absolutely tanked his BP. So we only had him on Fent. Is this like a normal thing? I know it is technically a sedative as well but I’ve only ever seen it alongside something else, not as the only sedation.

What do you do when your patient hates you? I had a patient yesterday, we weaned her off sedation and extubated her. Before we even got the tube out she was pointing at me with angry eyes. As soon as she was able to speak clearly she called me a bitch. She was incredibly confused so I didn’t take any of it to heart. My issue was she wouldn’t let me provide care for her. Thankfully she liked my preceptor so someone was still able to do it, but I felt so useless and couldn’t help but wonder what I would do in this situation off orientation. It got a little better later into the shift she let me give her a few medications and do her finger sticks but if I was in the room too long she’d start ge

Hi all, I’m needing a little confidence boost lol what are some of your funny new grad fail stories?

Hi all, I’m a new grad in the ICU. I have two preceptors that I alternate between. One of them I’m great with. I ask all the right questions, I do all the right things, I’m hardly awkward at all. The other one I’m constantly making little mistakes in front of, I ask really dumb questions, and I feel like she thinks I’m an idiot. Giving report around her is so nerve wracking I just feel the judgment. But with my other preceptor I’m totally fine. What is wrong with me. What can I do SOS lol.

Hello, I’m a new grad ICU nurse. I’ve been on the unit for about 3 weeks. We do rounds everyday between 9-10. I’ve been very lucky, all of my patients have had residents to present them but today was my first time attempting it…yall. I panicked, I have really bad social anxiety and having so many people surrounding me while I was talking freaked me out lol. Thankfully my preceptor took over but I feel really dumb and really embarrassed. I need some tips and tricks here. I feel like this put a damper on my whole day. This is the aspect of nursing I really struggle with. I can do the tasks, manage the patients (for the most part). But doing rounds, giving report, and phone calls I really strug

Hello all. I’m a new grad in the ICU. I just completed my 5th shift on the unit and let me just say, today was hard for me. My last 4 shifts my patients were pretty med-surgey/low acuity. Pretty much just waiting on a bed on a different floor. Today was my first day with higher acuity patients and it was just kind of a lot lol.

I was running around like crazy in the morning. I didn’t finish charting my head to toes until like 1:30. My preceptor is really good, very knowledgeable but she’s definitely the hands off kind of preceptor. If I ask for help she helps, if I don’t she just hangs back and checks in if I’m taking too long to do something. Thankfully she did all the “silly” charting fo

How’s everyone hanging in there?

It’s been 2.5 months since I lost my dog and I honestly thought I was doing better but I’m not lol. Between losing my dog and starting a new, very challenging, job a month after. I’m a mess. I miss my dog, she was my rock. I work 3 12s so my days off are awful. If I don’t find something to go do I just sit at home crying over her.

What are you guys doing to keep yourselves busy?