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Straight to the point survival guide — kind of…
Regardless of what anyone tells you, your first year as a nurse WILL SUCK and WILL BE OVERWHELMING. If you’re reading this as a nursing student, I hope you chose nursing as a career path for the right reasons. That was a little intense but I mean everything I just wrote. I am no spokesperson for all nurses, but these are the tips I wish I knew in the beginning of my nursing career.
Always Ask Questions.
If you get through this piece and need to take one thing from it, remember to always ask questions. I would say this is the most important piece of advice for any profession. I don’t care how annoyed my coworkers are with me, I ask them at least 5 questions a shift. It’s not always because I don’t know the answer — 95% of the time it’s to clarify. I promise you there is nothing wrong with asking questions… no matter how someone may make you feel. If you’re doubting anything, ASK ASK ASK! That doesn’t mean disregard reading hospital policies but sometimes it takes a quick question to get to an answer. For example: “Can you double check this insulin with me?”. I would rather bother my coworker for 10 seconds vs giving too much insulin to put my patient in hypoglycemic shock which could lead to death. So many errors can be avoided if we just took a second to ask the right question.
