New Job

I am a labor & delivery nurse. To me, this is a big deal. I knew it would be a daunting task to learn a whole new set of skills, etc., and I am a bit overwhelmed. Still and all I love it, and I will never go back to doing what I did before.

I am lucky to have a fantastic preceptor with over 25 years experience on our unit, plus about seven years as a midwife in her native Cayman Islands. She is not only an expert in the field, but also patient and kind with me. She says I am coming along very well, so I have to trust her judgment even when I am feeling like a huge idiot.

What I am great at is building rapport with my patients and being a labor coach. Not so fabulous are my IV and foley catheter skills, at which I've been hit or miss. We have been concentrating on vaginal deliveries, especially inductions. I am feeling more confident with that process, even handling a couple deliveries nearly independently (though I always manage to forget something . . .) The next hurdle will be C-sections. I was circulating nurse for the first time in the OR on Friday and it went OK, although I am completely ignorant of the instruments, which makes doing the counts with an impatient scrub tech a challenge, to say the least. I'm not sure why some people seem to enjoy making a new coworker feel stupid. Anyway . . .

Part of me is eager to get the orientation process over with and be out there on my own, and the other part of me wants to cling to my preceptor forever. I still have tons to learn and more to commit to memory, but I have already come a long way. I may have finally found a job I can be happy doing for years to come. I hope!