Lisa Bonsall's blog post from earlier this week inspired me to write about my orientation into acute care nursing. I hope that my story will provide some encouragement to novices in the profession.

   I was certain that I would be a nurse at a young age because my mother and six of her siblings were also nurses. I believe it was a family calling. While my family members often shared the benefits of the profession, I wish that someone had told me that I may feel anxious after the honeymoon of orientation passes. I recall asking myself, "What am I doing here?" and  "Why did I go into nursing?" I have even wondered how I could have an RN license and not be able to start I.V.s, not know how to read ECGs, and be afraid of doing some procedures. I would also stay awake at night replaying my assignments to be certain that I didn't forget to do anything. Fortunately, I had the experience of going through orientation with eleven other new graduates. This was a very supportive group because we shared our frustrations and successes. During our many discussions, I learned that others also had similar fears and a few experienced sleepless nights.

   I have to give a lot of credit to my employer because we received good mentorship, education, hands-on assistance from our nurse manager, staff development instructors, and preceptors. In addition, we had an informal support team among ourselves. After nearly twenty years, I'm still friends with a few of them. As we progressed through orientation and gradually built up our skill level to management of a full assignments and practicing independently, we all decided to stick it out the first year. By the second year in nursing, we found that it got better. We would exchange anecdotes about how scared, naive, and slow we were as "new nurses". I recall the situations when nurses would avoid code blues; spend 30 minutes administering medications...to one patient; and completing A.M. care at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. One of the best examples of adjusting to the "real world" was that we occasionally struggled to interpret the alphabet soup of medical acronyms, but in a few months we used the terminology quite fluently. By then we realized that all the knowledge that we acquired in school was just the beginning.

   My advice to new nurses is to keep in mind that your classess and clinical rotations are merely establishing a minimum level of competence and safety. You will eventually emerge as proficient nurses if you demonstrate a commitment to the nursing professions by truly caring for your patients, practicing the standards of care, and building upon your knowledge through inservices and continuing education. What's most important is that you find a supportive team either at work, professional organizations, or the internet that will help you through those difficult phases of developing your nursing career.