My first medication round on my own was sloooooow! As the doctors here use brand names on their charts, I spent a good deal of time looking up the MIMS to find out what each drug was! This is good practice anyway, but to find some that I knew already, just under a different name is frustrating! And being a country hospital with no pharmacy, finding nil stock was more than frustrating.......however, they teach us to problem solve and that is what I did! "Oral" doesn't always have to be a tablet! And PO can be substituted for PR, right? ;-)
IV drugs are a little different. They, well, not scare me exactly, but make me more than a little nervous. Putting something straight into someone's bloodstream is not exactly an every day task for most people, and can have disastrous consequences if something is amiss. Even after the second RN checked, I think I re-checked every drug about a million times, and it felt odd to not have someone over my shoulder as I administered the medication. I'm paranoid about making a mistake without a mentor over my shoulder to give me instructions! This is probably a good thing, as complacency has no place in a hospital, especially in today's society. I know time in the job will increase my confidence, but I feel like I'm just keeping my head above water right now!
Something else I have found strange is writing notes. Prior to this, I have written as a student nurse and an AiN, and had an RN to counter-sign. But to write those two letters, R and N, after my signature feels quite odd. They aren't just a couple of letters you can just add on once you graduate. They mean far more - writing "RN" after your name implies an enormous responsibility, and accountability for your own actions. Its not just a job - you are dealing with people's lives and wellbeing every day, and one small mistake can snowball into something nobody wants to think about.........
No wonder I feel a little nervous!
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