There are things that I wished they told me at school before I start working. When I got my first job I had a lot of those moments, I wished I was told at school or someplace else, but eventually I learned that while working. You have already achieved a very great thing; you have graduated and earned your degree such as BSN, AND LPN or Diploma, now you have to be prepared for the real learning!
If you don’t know something then don’t say that you do. There are lots of possibilities that you are going to make a mistake, watch and listen before you do anything on your workplace. Take notes about the things that you have to do; it’s always easier than trying to remember them. Find your mentor at your workplace. Emulate your mentor’s habits, take a note of you bad habits and try to eliminate them. When I was a new nurse on the cardiac step-down unit I didn’t do any of these things, actually I did just the opposite. I had a lot of work to do and it came out that I’m forgetting things just as easy as my old grandmother.
Being a single player is not working out, think of the patient safety first. If you are late with the patient’s meds. because you had to spend little extra time with other patients its totally fine. Always work as a team. It will solve all your and your colleagues’ problems. It will be much easier for the patients, and you will love your work much more than you do right now. Here are some tips that might help you:
- Be a friend – listen to your patients, what they are going to say. They know better themselves then you do.
- Integrity is going to make you better nurse- honesty pays better, be honest with yourself and to the others.
- Never enter into the gossip game/circle. It brings down morale, goes nowhere.
- Be on time every time. When you are late then your colleagues are late. I don’t want my colleague to be late especially if she is new, brings a bad impression.
- Keep in touch with everything. Stay organized as much as possible. Never leave your task for later, maybe there will be no time for later.
- When you work somewhere no matter which place is it, there is too much work for everyone. There are nervous people rushing somewhere, people waiting for something, complaining to random persons, it is the same at every place and it’s not going to change. At least you are not going to change it. If you have to do a job for the first time, you do it right. Never rush, be nervous later and know that there isn’t going to be later or to do it over.
- Plan for the worst, hope for the best
Five steps to be a good nurse?
- Take care of your body; you are going to need it. Eat well, sleep well exercise more. Nurses have a tendency to do just the opposite. Do not be one of them.
- Seek out for more. Invest in your future. Continue your education as a nurse, there is a whole world of chances for nurses to get a better job and better education.
- Learn to be more confident. If you haven’t yet you better start. There are lot of books, seminars, conferences go and visit them.
- Work hard but have a hobby too. Nurse is what you work but is not who you are.
- Let your instinct be your guide through your work. Never ignore it and believe in yourself.
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