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Archive for October, 2008

Oct 02 2008

It's my one-month anniversary

This week I will have been a real, live, working registered nurse for one month! I almost didn’t make it (at the current place of employment). Here’s a summary of what happened:

Week 1:

I’m sitting behind my preceptor, observing, taking notes, and reading a half-foot-thick binder of triage guidelines for dozens of conditions. My preceptor doesn’t tire of explaining every little detail to me, multiple times. The clients are more than I had bargained for. More on the cultural complexities of working with this population in a later post.

Internal monologue: This is fun … this is too much information … how long are they going to let me train? … I feel like I’m in China … No way, my vocabulary just doubled.

First half of Week 2:

I’m sitting in the triage hot seat; my preceptor’s in the background. When I get stuck, which is every 1 to 2 minutes, she explains procedures, hints at questions I should be asking, interprets for the clients, cheers me on, and relieves me when clients suddenly pile in. I rejoice when I take care of two patients in a row without asking for help.

Internal monologue: My preceptor is fabulous … but she must think I’m an idiot … but she’s so nice and patient … hey, I’m going to get the hang of this.

Second half of Week 2:

Another triage nurse fills in for my preceptor, who is out for two days. I sit in the hot seat again and with confidence, I dive right in to the cases, eager to extend the time in which I don’t need help from 2 minutes to 5. But, wait, something’s amiss.

Suddenly I can’t say more than 10 words or pause to think for more than 15 seconds before the substitute preceptor jumps in, talking a mile a minute to both me and the clients. I can barely follow and she can’t bare to listen to my broken Chinese, which only gets more broken as the pressure to speak, act, and think at bullet-train speed mounts. For 8 hours, I’m pummeled by her urgency, anxiety, frustrated sighs, and the following refrain: “You’re a nurse now, you should know all this!” At the end of the day when my blood pressure is sky high, she tries to be kind: “Don’t look so upset. You’ll get it.”

Internal monologue: Can you please slow down … we are NOT in an E.R. … do you realize half the patients don’t understand what you just said … no! no, I’m not supposed to know all this, I just graduated 2 months ago! … grrr, if you just. let. me. try. … Is that my heart pounding? … I want to crawl into a hole … God, I’m a fraud! … Oh why did they hire me? … I wish they never hired me.

Week 3:

My preceptor is back and I try not to kiss her. We’re back to the relaxed and steady, the positive reinforcements, the room to try, make mistakes, and try again. She unwittingly helps build back some of my decimated self-confidence. Still, I’m plagued with doubts and anxiety.

Internal monologue: I want to quit … I think I’m going to quit … but I like a lot of things about this job … I don’t want to let anyone down … no, I think I should save everyone time and money and quit. Who else is learning to be a nurse in a foreign language? Why did I get into this situation?

Week 4:

My ever-grounded and patient partner talks me down from making knee-jerk decisions over the weekend. He encourages me to give the clinic and myself some time, at least a month. He makes a good point — why not let the clinic fire me if they think I can’t cut it or get tired of training me; as long as they want me, I can’t be doing too shabbily.

I go back with renewed vigor … I won’t give up without trying my very hardest. I study day and night. I dive in with broken, ugly Chinese, and refine it as I go along. I make mistakes and own up to them. I work a little more smoothly and independently each day. Nothing catastrophic happens, but I still worry.

Internal monologue: I can do this, I think … how much time will they give me to train? I hope I can do this on my own soon. I hope I don’t have to work with those other nurses. Why am I doing this job again?

There’s actually one more day before I can really sum up my fourth week. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

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This blog is about a writer’s journey into nursing. Next stop: Work. And UCSF Master’s of Nursing.

Archive for October, 2008

It's my one-month anniversary

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