So, life continues apace. Mostly at an apace I can barely cope with. I was exhausted today, I crawled out of bed, cursing the alarm clock, the shower, the morning, my eyes for being so sore…
I made it in though, I think I was even reasonably awake while I drove in. And then the shit hit the fan. For reasons I shan’t go into, there was a lot of work with very little information this morning – and despite it all – and despite working with my mentor who I struggle with (she does *stuff*; she doesn’t leave me to my patients, or my patients to me and prompt me. She just does things. I never know what’s going on. It’s something I need to tackle…) I felt like I’d actually done okay this morning.
It was all together – more or less – by handover time, but I’d still not really got a grasp on who I was treating. I’d only got bits of the doctor’s round. The whole thing was kind of thrown together. So I started handover – with the warning that I really didn’t know the patients that well and it might have bits missing. Of course, I was talking to the guys I was working with yesterday who’d had those patients, and who were far better versed in what they needed and wanted.
I started to feel like crap.
I got interrupted part way through a patient. I missed out her past medical history (somehow) and then ended up with my mentor constantly interrupting me. I left feeling like utter shit; I didn’t know the people – and I’d become aware as I was handing over just how badly I knew them; I can’t work like this. I need to either be doing everything (and delegating tasks) or being delegated to. Having two people trying to deal with patients independantly just doesn’t work. I still feel like crap. I know that a lot of it is just tiredness, but the concept of more of this – I can’t face it. So I’ll have to talk to my two mentors and say “I need you to stand back more” – because when I work with the people I *like* working with that’s how it’s done. They supervise and advise and prompt. *sighs*.
It’s not like I don’t like my mentors, that’s not it at all. But if they aren’t able to let me actually practice as a nurse then what good is me being there?
