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One thing you have to learn as an ER nurse is humility. I see some young nurses with say a year under their belt, overconfident. Its like they say to themselves: I've done this a year, I know it all. Here's the thing: That kind of attitude will eventually bite you.There's nothing wrong with confidence. Its a good thing. I have a lot of confidence. The thing is I have been doing this a long time. But there is one thing I know: I don't know everything and I never will. On a regular basis, I ask my co-workers for help. I depend on them. If I've never done something, I know one of them will help me do it. If I need help, I ask for it.
The longer you work in ER, the more humble you become. The more you see, the more you realize you will never see it all. Overconfidence leads to mistakes.
4 comments:
As a new nurse in the ER (just over a year) I have never been more humbled than when I stepped foot out onto the floor on my own. While my confidence has grown, I still have SO much to learn. But that's one of the things I love best about being an ER nurse... I learn something new pretty much every single shift! Never a dull moment ;)
The scariest nurses in the world are the ones that say they've never made a med error.
Proving, as usual, it's not what you don't know that's the problem.
It's what you don't know that you don't know that's the problem.
I can't say it's the same on the floor (vowed after school I'd never work there agin and made it stick), but in the ER, the know-it-alls "Thanks, but I've got this" types crater into a smoking hole with a predictbale and tedious regularity.
The only ones worth helping after that are the ones who suddenly learn humility, rendering them teachable.
I'm still waiting after nearly two decades for the hospital shift where I don't ask for someone's help. I'm pretty certain it isn't going to come along unless I move to a one-nurse hospital, and even then, I have my doubts.
Know what you don't know... I fear a lot of these fly-by-night nursing programs out and about right now are not instilling that philosophy in their nursing programs. They take an enormous amount of cash from approximately 3 sessions of students, establish no accreditation, change the name of the school, and start all over again.
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