Nursing Lyfe 101

Surviving Your First Year – Finding Balance & Avoiding Burnout

• Nursing Lyfe 101 • Season 1 • Episode 9

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📢 Description:

In this follow-up to Episode 8, Christopher and Colby continue the conversation on what it’s really like to be a new nurse. They discuss the pressures of picking up extra shifts, why it’s essential to have a life outside of the hospital, and how to avoid early career burnout.


💡 Key Topics:

✔️ Why you should limit overtime in your first year

✔️ The importance of finding hobbies outside of work

✔️ Financial tips for new nurses – insurance, 401(k), and more

✔️ The impact of having a great preceptor

✔️ Nursing Wins & Woes – real first-year struggles and victories

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Christopher:

Welcome to Nursing Lyfe 101, the most important nursing class you never got to take in nursing school. We will be traversing different objectives, like interviewing what to do in nursing school, boundaries burnout and so much more. If this interests you, I hope you are taking good notes because class is now in session.

Colby:

Hello and welcome to Nurse Lyfe 101. We're so excited to have you here with us as we dive into the world of nursing, sharing our experiences, insights and a little bit of fun along the way. I'm Colby and I couldn't be happier to introduce my co-host.

Christopher:

Hey guys, my name's Christopher. Together, we'll be bringing you real stories, practical tips and discussions about all things nursing, whether you're a fellow nurse or just curious about the life behind the scrubs, we're thrilled to have you join us. Just remember that we did talk about the Clin 1s earlier, about two weeks ago. I just wanted to bring a little bit of extra information, because we definitely started to talk about this longer than we anticipated.

Colby:

We had so much to share.

Christopher:

We did, and so we wanted you to kind of hear a little bit more and hopefully you will be able to enjoy it.

Colby:

Yeah,

Christopher:

so with Clin 1s, sometimes for you, for you, Colby, for myself. I also went to a whole different place.

Colby:

Yeah.

Christopher:

I had never been here. You have never been here.

Colby:

Yeah, very. I mean like one other time before I moved here. So like, not only are you starting a new job, you're fresh out of school, you're learning how to do your job. The potential that you've moved to a new location where you don't know anyone, potentially, or know much about the area, is a whole other like challenge to tackle.

Christopher:

Yeah, and to add to my difficulty, I started my career in fall of 19, ended orientation early winter of or, excuse me, late, late winter of 2020.

Colby:

And then COVID happened.

Christopher:

Many of you know about that and so everything shut down. Yeah, so I like, how can I even like go? Meet people which I wouldn't want to, because I'm an introvert and I'm like I'd much rather just stay in the house.

Colby:

COVID was actually good for you.

Christopher:

Yes, please.

Colby:

But no, it's a good point to make, like that was an extra challenge on top of an already challenging thing to tackle. Like I said, I think when you start a new job okay, wait, I think a great piece of advice that I actually from my current manager she said whenever she meets with the new graduate nurses frequently throughout their first year, just to like get a pulse check and see how they're doing and how they're acclimating, and you know to have, you know, a two-way street with communication that they can share and she can give feedback and vice versa. But a piece of advice that she always gives them is to like, try and maintain a life outside the hospital.

Colby:

It's so easy in your first year of nursing to just get consumed with nursing, like it's your first job which we were going to touch on in a minute, but this kind of goes with it it's your first like adult job potentially, and it's the first time you're making adult money. And one thing I think that gets really tantalizing is picking up extra shifts and then you your work, you're working your life away and you lose your life outside of the hospital, right? So when you're coming in and you're starting in a new place and a new location. Like Christopher and I did, like I, we both moved to it. Well, he was living here for a little bit, but we both moved to. Like he moved to a new area, I moved to a new state, like I knew very minimum amount of people.

Colby:

And I was like, oh, I'm just going to work all the time and make a crap ton of money?

Christopher:

Yeah, because you don't know anybody.

Colby:

Yeah, because you don't know anybody. It's so easy to just get consumed with work. So her advice of like trying to maintain, like find a hobby, is really what she said. Like find a hobby outside of nursing. Like find something that you like to do because it's a great outlet for you, to like let go of the stress of work and just get your mind off of it. It's different. I just think that's when she told me that and I was like oh my God, it's so simple. But I was like I wish someone told me that, because I did exactly what I just gave as an example. I worked my tail off and I got burnt out so early in my career because of the amount of hours that I worked.

Christopher:

Yeah, my manager likes to say your work funds your life, right, so it doesn't mean that your life's your work. It means you are working to do the fun things that you want to do outside of your life, outside of work. And she says that. And, unfortunately, you know, I say to many of the people that I precept I'm like your first six to 12 months after you finish orientation, don't dare pick up a shift. Now and I say that one a little bit selfish, I like to pick up the shelf.

Colby:

Like, leave them open for me.

Christopher:

Just, you know, it's a shellfish, it's a shellfish. It's a selfish reason, but there is a genuine, caring reason behind it. You see the money and you chase it.

Christopher:

Everybody sees money.

Christopher:

I mean, we are in a world of money and that's what, that's what we do. And so when you see, when you pick up one shift, you're like, oh my goodness.

Colby:

You're like, oh, that's nice yeah, especially like you have a lot of student loans. You're like, oh, I'm gonna pay this off. Or like you had, you had to like buy a car after graduation. Like, oh, I need to make my car payment, this will pay that. Like, just keep, if you do pick up extra, just keep it in mind. Keep yourself in check, because I I really truly, deeply in my heart, wish somebody had said that to me and instead they were just like, oh, yeah, Colby's picking up again, like we're not gonna be short-staffed, but it was. It really killed me in the long run where I just like fell so out of love with my career for a good long time and I was like I need a break, like I can't do this anymore. It was bad. So just keep that in mind. And I think what Christopher said like six to 12 months after orientation, if you don't need, if you really truly don't need to be working that hard, don't Like acclimate to your area.

Colby:

If you're new to the area, explore it, check it out. Go to the webpage of the city that you're living in. See what they have going on. It's a lot of fun to explore a new area. You can treat it like a little mini vacation, like be a pretend tourist for a day, do that cheesy stuff that you see people do. It's just like a fun way to get to know your community.

Colby:

Look on Facebook I love Facebook Marketplace. I love Facebook groups. I'm in so many different groups on Facebook, like hiking groups, sourdough making groups but you make like I got into sourdough last year. This is kind of a tangential, but I figured out how to do it through a facebook starter group and I bought my starter on facebook marketplace from somebody locally in the community and that's just like a neat way to use social media right. I think. Also a lot of cult systems try to set you up. This is kind of work related, but you could take it out of out of work realm but with like a mentor, yeah, like you can meet with a mentor and try to get connected with other people outside of work. Again, I mean, I lean back towards like Facebook groups, but like there's, you can meet up with people to do different things that you actually, you know, have common interest in.

Christopher:

Yeah, so I, as an ANM, I every week or excuse me, every other week I send an email called the Christopher's Corner. Yes, and at the end of Christopher's Corner I always send a little snippet of things if you get bored. That's what I name it. This is like things if you get bored and it's always a list of stuff that essentially is things to do in the city, and you know what I use. Colby said it, it's the city's web page. They always have events on there, so just go to the events and kind of find it. And one thing that I realized that in back to me being a foodie, there are many cities do restaurant week and so if you're a foodie like I am, I have a list now of restaurants that I want to go to that are here near the city. That I did I got from just pretty much restaurant weekend. Then I started kind of asking and exploring myself. But you know, that kind of allows you to go do stuff outside of just sitting and eating at McDonald's.

Colby:

I know I I agree with you, though it's like I think another thing, another piece of advice, like to go off of that like google your interests, like with with your city, like yeah, so Christopher did that and has a list of restaurants that he wants to go to and I heavily peruse for live music shows and I actually just organized a few different things with our friend group about going to a few concerts I just and I I google, like city live music and just see what comes up. If that's your fancy, like, let's say, you like pottery city, pottery, see where the pottery studios are, I don't know. Just something like that. Like just explore your city or town, wherever you are, and spend your time away from the hospital, away from the hospital.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah, and that's interesting because I think both of us did not do that.

Colby:

No, not, not in our first year.

Christopher:

Right.

Colby:

Our first few years, so take that, take it to heart.

Colby:

We're speaking from experience. Where we did, we did not. I didn't have anybody to tell me to do differently, though.

Christopher:

I did, and I just ignored it.

Colby:

So you're for two different experiences. So don't ignore us. We really mean it. So Christopher was told and ignored it, and he regrets it. And I was never told, did it and I regret it. So both aspects just know that if you work too much, you will regret it.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I still love my job and I have not gotten to the point where I was like, oh man, I.

Colby:

You had a little more balance but you can admit that you were working a lot.

Christopher:

Oh, no, yeah.

Colby:

Yeah.

Christopher:

I 100%. I still work a lot. What are you talking about?

Colby:

Yes, that's true.

Christopher:

Yeah, okay, I just wanted to establish that.

Colby:

I'm just trying to rag on you.

Christopher:

So you know we talked about it and mentioned it multiple times this is y'all's first big person job. That means a lot and that you can be under your parents' insurance for a long time, and I think it depends on the state, so I'm not going to say what it is specifically to this state, but you are allowed to just be here and learn and kind of grow in what it means to have a big person job, which means there's big person bills, there's big person ideas, there's big person problems, there's um big person insurance. You know all this happens. What would you say to someone is like this is a big person job in terms of like the big person things that you would have to kind of focus on it is.

Christopher:

If you don't know, I insurance is is the one that I'm always kind of.

Colby:

I know well, like insurance and like your 401k, like yeah, I don't know they're called, but whatever your retirement plan is, yeah, there's so many different options, but it's this, I mean those, those two are.

Colby:

I mean, obviously you want to if you're on, if you're young enough and you have the ability to be on your parents' insurance, like, ride that out so you don't have to pay that. That's my suggestion to you. I was not able to do that. I had to because I lived in a different state. I was, you know, I was fully in big girl mode. But yeah, if you can ride that out and save that cost, but yeah, make sure, I would say for insurance at this young age, unless you have any medical issues that you know of. Like, we're pretty healthy.

Colby:

And I think I got scared when I was signing up and I had the first year, like the most expensive one, but I didn't even go to a regular like PCP, so I was paying like an insane amount of money out of my paycheck every month for the top insurance package when I didn't need it. And so just don't get scared, like I was. And maybe this is bad advice, I don't know, but then it was like, then I went to the middle tier for a little while and realized again that I, like am healthy. I don't ever go to the doctor. Not to say that, like, not going to the doctor is the right move. You should, but like basic.

Christopher:

I'm about to go on a tangent with that.

Colby:

So okay, but base, I believe, in my opinion, is, if you're a healthy young adult, basic insurance with the HSA option is perfectly fine. It's going to cover your visits, your yearly visits to your doctor's appointments, and it's not necessary. You can get the highest one if you feel like you want to. But for me personally, it was never necessary for me to be paying such a high premium for the insurance and it was a little silly. So I will just take it into consideration. If you have questions about insurance I don't even know who to point you to, but I'm going to say HR and maybe they can explain it to you a little bit. But I'm going to guess that there's probably someone at the desk in the same age group as you that had the same question. So if you have parents that are savvy or just older friends that are savvy I'm still not savvy, but I'll tell you I have the basic insurance and I have HSA and that's just fine. But then, secondly, you should start, even if it's a small amount, contributing to a retirement plan, especially if your hospital or wherever you work matches. Try to like if you can afford to max, if you can't afford to max it out, but even if you can't afford to max it out. Put something in because you'll never you're not going to regret that later when you're like 60.

Colby:

So the one thing about nursing is that it's kind of hard to retire young unless you were really thinking about your future at a younger age and how much you want to contribute to your retirement Right, because it's not like very lucrative in the sense where, like I, have friends that started out making more money than me in other fields and they're still making more money Like every year. They just make exponentially more money than me and it's like, oh my God, we have like the same level of degree. What the heck Like. It's just the unfortunate truth that in nursing, like we aren't paid our worth and so you just have to be conscious of the amount that you're saving and it's only going to pay off in the long run. So making sure that you set that up is. Those are my top two. I can't think of a third one for that.

Christopher:

No, I mean, I was just thinking of one.

Colby:

Yeah okay.

Christopher:

But I'm cool with that. But

Colby:

What were you going to say about insurance?

Christopher:

Yeah well, no, it's not necessarily about insurance. If you find a different location or you're in a different spot and you're no longer under your normal primary physician, please, please, please, please, find a PCP.

Colby:

Yeah, that's super important.

Christopher:

Don't, don't go. Yes, I'm glad you feel great, you know that's. That's wonderful. That you feel great, that's wonderful that you are doing things right. Your brain is clear, your eyes are great, like all those things. That's great. Those things, that's great. But having a, a PCP as your founder, like you're- paying for insurance you have to.

Colby:

Yeah, you might as well get your yearly visit.

Colby:

It's and I say that as somebody that didn't have a PCP for years and I and it's it's not good to be to go that long. It's not good. And I'll give you examples for myself. I passed out at a restaurant and then I needed to get. I didn't have a PCP. I had to find one. I had to get, and that took time. I passed out at a restaurant. I went to the emergency room. They were like follow up with your PCP in a week and I was like I don't got one of those. So then I had to call one. I had to get appointments set up. I had to figure out all of that stuff. But if I had a PCP in advance I could have gotten in a lot sooner and gotten things figured out.

Christopher:

And how do you follow up with a PCP if you don't have one to begin with?

Christopher:

There's no following up really.

Christopher:

Because they're not going to be like oh, this is this new problem that has now been attached to your insurance as a new problem, when it could have been something that could have happened years ago.

Colby:

Yeah, so it's just something that's it's important to establish. I totally agree, and you know what? It's great if you don't have to go see them, but they also could like if you have a PCP, it could save you from like having to go to urgent care Like it's saving money honestly, Like a PCP, like copay is going to be cheaper than a urgent care visit copay. So keep that in mind too. Like you're going to save yourself money if you. It's like simple things like oh, I need a flu swab. Like if you call your PCP's office a lot of times that they just they're like yep, okay, we'll meet you outside, swab you in your car, and that's like a 15 minute appointment where you could wait hours at an urgent care for the same thing.

Christopher:

It's insane. Yeah, it really just depends on you know your location of the of the United States and if you're in a rural or more metropolitan area like all these places could be different, but like also be picky with your PCP.

Colby:

Yeah.

Christopher:

Don't you dare settle for someone who's not gonna listen to you.

Colby:

That's true, I think.

Colby:

Yeah, I agree with that. It's just hard sometimes we we're lucky because we have great, a great one, but I think sometimes people have limited options. Yeah, our PCP is great and we just refer everybody to her. Christopher referred me to them. And then every person I'm like, oh, you don't have one, let me give you this person's name. Like even like my manager, I was she.

Christopher:

Oh, did you really?

Colby:

Yeah, I did. And then she mentioned something recently and I was like, did you call the office? And she's like I didn't set it up. And I was like here's her name again.

Colby:

But yeah, being a terrible patient when you work in healthcare but, when it's easy, like when you like the person that you're gonna go see, it's like it makes it all a lot nicer. So if you can find one that you like I think sometimes people are have limited options depending on where they are and what their insurance covers and that kind of thing. But hopefully if you're working at a hospital or a doctor's office in that setting for a health care system, you have good enough insurance to find someone that cares about you and not so much as like the time constraint and actually listens to what you're saying like Christopher said.

Christopher:

Right and it's.

Christopher:

it's okay to be like. You went to that pcp the first time and you're like I, nah, don't like them.

Colby:

Yeah, go find a new one.

Christopher:

If that's the case, keep on walking. And if you you know they're like do you want to set up a new appointment? It's okay, be like nah, I don't feel like it. I did that. I did that Like, no, I'm good. And I just kept going. I didn't tell him why.

Colby:

You don't have to.

Christopher:

And you don't have, yeah, you don't have to.

Colby:

Oh, that's something else. Okay, this is off the current topic, but also would like to just share with a new graduate. Graduate nurse If you're calling out of work, you don't have to give a reason. Oh yeah, I feel like some people might feel guilty, especially myself, when I call out of work because I'm, because I'll work when I'm sick, even though I shouldn't, and that's not good advice. If you're sick, you should stay home.

Christopher:

I mean, she did a dang podcast trying to get me sick.

Colby:

I had like RSV or the flu or something, but I was COVID negative.

Christopher:

So I'm fine, by the way.

Colby:

Yeah, Immune system of steel, but not me, and I blame that on the Invisalign, but that's tangential. Anywho, if you are sick and even if you're not sick and you need a mental health day or you're calling out for whatever reason, you don't have to give a reason. You just say, I am Colby, I work on this unit, I'm calling out for my shift 12, 12 hours on this day, and they just say okay. They should just say okay. They might say, oh, I hope you feel better. Whatever but one. They don't have a right to know why you're calling out. So if they ask you why, you can can say I'm calling out, that's it. That's all you need to say. So just don't feel like you need to give like some long excuse or story or whatever explanation about why you're calling out when you call out. That's it.

Colby:

That's like a sidebar.

Christopher:

So you know. Last kind of part before we continue to our little segment break what was your experience as a clin 1.

Colby:

I had a really great preceptor, yeah, who I became friends with,

Christopher:

Okay.

Colby:

and we were really close the first two years, when I moved out of the state where we currently live back home for a year and we stayed in touch. And then I moved back to where we are and we stayed in touch for a little while but she was a couple of years older than me and started having kids. We kind of grew apart. But she's a wonderful person and I think about her often and we follow each other on social media and I love to see that she's doing well. Without her I feel like my experience could have been so shitty. Like she was my lifeline. That first year like she taught me so much, took me under her wing like we should. We hung out outside of work. We had like we were both from New England. We had like some common ground. I was very, I feel. I feel I was very lucky to have like an instant connection with my preceptor.

Christopher:

That's really neat.

Colby:

Yeah, that was like so, like she was such a good, she was such a good educator, was patient, kind. I had like that classic situation with like a mean doctor who like kind of snapped at me and I was like like shook and tearful and she was like, no, you're not going to speak to my, my new grad, like that and like she just went to bat for me. She was, she was awesome. So I was very lucky to have such a good first year and felt very like safe, like my preceptor made me feel safe and welcome and it was. It was a really good learning environment yeah, that's good, that's really neat.

Christopher:

I would say my first clin 1 experience was also good. Like I, I enjoyed it. It was. It was definitely different because COVID, but um, yeah, you know I did. I really learned and got to understand nursing in a different perspective, in a lot of different ways. But I had multiple preceptors. I had pretty much two for days and two for nights and all of them I, if I run into them in the hospital, like it's really cool to see them and I kind of follow along that one of them just had well, had a baby, like recently after she was moving from the unit and you know it's going to be like oh, you know how's your baby. And another one is still on the unit that you work for and I stay in touch with him. And then one actually moved to the unit I work for and so I see her very often, often, yeah, um, yeah it it all. Also, you know, we we hit the NRP part, the nurse residency program, that's.

Christopher:

That's actually a very.

Colby:

I forgot to even mention that.

Christopher:

Yeah, for my own personal, oh yeah because you had a very different one and I was very when we talked about this in the car one day, you know you were saying your residency program was like transition to practice, like it was a transition to practice.

Colby:

Yea, it was, it was more unit based by our nurse educator. But it was specialty focus on cardiology and we had very and it was intense.

Colby:

I mean we had like multiple classes on just learning telemetry. It was like going. Yeah, it was like a very interactive, very intense. We did lots of mock codes we did it was yeah, it was. I feel again, I didn't do our current health systems nurse residency program, so I don't know exactly how it's set up because I didn't go through it, but it seems very different in comparison to what I've done through mine.

Christopher:

Right, yeah, and I mean, ours is, our current health system is good. I did appreciate it and they do take the time to bring in subject experts of certain things like respiratory therapists, your emergency response team, where we call MET, your managers. My manager actually goes and speaks to be like, hey, you know, this is how you deal with managers, this is how you talk with them. We are actually here for you type situations, and you then come together and I think this is what kind of made it so good for me was that I now have so many friends in so many different um.

Colby:

Oh, like around the, around the hospital, different specialties.

Christopher:

Right, because

Colby:

that's nice

Christopher:

They had us come together as a group and it was asking the questions like hey, we just, you just all had a patient that died today. How are you feeling? You know, how do you, how are you coping, how are you, what are you using as coping mechanisms? You using as coping mechanisms, and you got to really like express how you're feeling or how you would have reacted, and you kind of commiserated together and try to figure out what to do, which was really nice.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah, and it's like another opportunity for you to like have peers that are going to the same thing as you and kind of being able to have those like deload conversations when you're you know, when you're going through that first year.

Christopher:

Right, because once again you will struggle.

Colby:

Commiserate is a great word that I've used.

Colby:

Like it really is.

Christopher:

You will struggle, and these, these are people that will hopefully be there to put an arm under you and keep you up. So, you know, make sure that you are, if you're not. You know, not all health systems do this. This seems to be more of a teaching hospital-esque thing that has magnet behind them and you know, there are good things and bad things about magnet and maybe that's something that we'll talk about in later topics, but it's definitely something that you, as a new Clin 1, should start to think about and kind of process. You know, do I want to go into a hospital that has an NRP and if I don't, how am I going to be able to be supported?

Colby:

Yeah, all right. Is it time for our segment break?

Christopher:

It is.

Colby:

All right, it's time for Nursing Wins and Woes, where we share the highs and lows of life and scrubs. Every shift brings its own set of victories and challenges. So this is where we get real about the moments that make us love our job and the ones that test our patience, whether it's a big win, a small triumph or a relatable woe. From the floor, we're here to celebrate and commiserate together. All right, so a Clin 1 wins and woes. Well, you kind of shared the Clin 1 wins and and Woes on our first Wins and Woes segment break.

Christopher:

Yeah, I did,

Colby:

yeah,

Christopher:

yeah, but I definitely have more.

Colby:

There's probably a laundry list of them from my first year.

Colby:

Okay, well actually okay Well actually okay.

Colby:

So I touched on it a little bit when I was talking about, like my nurse preceptor, like the one I had, like a mean doctor yell at me. Um okay, so yeah,

Christopher:

I just want to make sure we clarify what wins and what you yourself are experiencing.

Colby:

Yes, this is me.

Colby:

This is my story. It's not my patient. No, it's not. No, this is me potentially messing something up.

Christopher:

Okay, okay, I'm just making sure. Just making sure.

Colby:

Just listen to the story.

Christopher:

I will, I will.

Colby:

All right.

Colby:

So cardiac floor Patient was admitted for a Tikosyn load. This is my first time with Tikosyn.

Christopher:

Oh okay.

Colby:

Okay, so I'm learning. What is Tikosyn, also known as Dofetilide? What does this medication do? How does it affect the heart? Why are we giving it? Doing all of my questions?

Colby:

asking all my questions to my preceptor reading about the medication Right. Tikosyn or Dofetilide is an antiarrhythmic drug. Patients have to come into the hospital when they're starting this medication and we monitor for the minimum of six doses. There's a high risk of patient going into a lethal rhythm called torsades when starting this medication because one of the properties elongates your QTC, which is a measurement in your cardiac rhythm. Two hours after each dose is given, you're required to get an EKG. My preceptor goes over everything with me. I'm like okay, I got it. We gave the dose at like 845. So I'm like 1045, got to get an EKG there it is.

Colby:

I'm like all right, I'm ready. She stepped off the floor. She had a meeting. She's like all right, I got a meeting, I'll be back in 30 minutes.

Christopher:

She believed in you.

Colby:

She believed me. She said Colby the EKG 1045, I got it, liz. So Liz leaves, she's my preceptor, liz leaves and I go at 1045, I get the patient all hooked up to the EKG. I get the EKG, I put it in the chart and I'm like wash my hands of it. I did it, I'm all done.

Colby:

And this particular hospital had a mix of paper charting still like this is like old school and electronic medical record. We were using something called meditech. It was before they transferred over to epic. So, okay, I like walk it over to the physical chart. And the electrophysiologist comes up to the floor a few minutes later and he was a smaller man in stature and so classic yeah, in classic smaller man stature nature. He had a bad attitude.

Christopher:

Oh n o.

Colby:

To everybody.

Christopher:

Oh no.

Colby:

And it was my turn that day, oh no. He looked at the ekg and I think he misread the time that it was gotten at because I got it at the right time, yeah. But he found me in the nurse's station and ripped me a new asshole because he thought that I got it. I can't remember if he thought I got it an hour later or an hour too early. I think it was an hour too early because it was at 1045, but that's because I gave the med at 845.

:

So it wasn't early at all.

Colby:

It was on time. But I think he saw in his eye the 10 and didn't know that the dose was given at 8.45. So he thought it was done. Yeah, I think he thought I got it early. And even if it was given at 9 and I got it at 10.45, like that's only 15 minutes early, but you would have thought that I committed a cardinal sin. And I thought I committed a cardinal sin. I was like, oh my God, did I get it too early? I was like so apologetic, I was like having I was beet red tearing up.

Colby:

I was. I was like I was like, oh my God. I was like, excuse my language. But I was like this patient's going to die, like my first time with a medication that's super high risk giving it. And my preceptor left me, and she because she believed in me and I understood what I had to do and I did it right. But I didn't know this at the time. So I was just melting down. I was full on, like nuclear plant meltdown. I did not cry but I was teary-eyed and I went into the bathroom and then I cried, but I did not cry in front of that doctor, who is such an asshole.

Colby:

And my preceptor came back and she's like why is he acting so crazy? This is insane. She was like we gave the dose Same thing that I just said gave the dose at 845. We got the EKG. You got the EKG at 1045. Nothing went wrong here. What is going on?

Colby:

So she like walked into the physician workroom and was like I don't understand why you're so upset. This EKG was given two hours exactly after the dose was given. There's no problem here. You don't need to speak to my new grad nurse in that manner. You need to re-look at the time. Like she went off off and so that part was my win, because she like validated that I didn't do anything wrong. She was so nice, she like sat down and we went over everything again. She's like you know exactly what you did. Like you did it exactly correct. There was no wrong part here, right? Like you're good and I'm gonna tell him about himself and I was like, oh, my god, and she did, and I was after that day, my God, and she did, and I was after that day. That doctor never said a word to me ever again. He would just like put notes in and, yeah, he would like write in the chart like the note.

Christopher:

Little person, is he?

Colby:

I'll show you a picture of him. Okay, I think he still works. But yeah, that was my, one of my.

Colby:

My was a clin 1, though, but like that first time I mean again, unfortunately, there's always going to be a mean person that you work with, whether it's like direct, like it's a colleague, like I'm not a colleague but a peer, like a nurse, or or maybe they're a tech attack. But when it's like a doctor, that's devastating for a new person in a role and in a job and everything devastating. But I survived it. I'll never and I will. In knowing me now, it's wild to think that I would let anybody speak to me like that and I would stand up for my clin 1 too if someone went off like that. But I also like the physicians that we work with are not mean like that, like they would never. They also would never. The ones that I work with never speak to my staff like that.

Christopher:

Right, yeah, and surgeons are a little different, yeah.

Colby:

Surgeons are different.

Christopher:

Yeah, but that's interesting. You still didn't do anything wrong.

Christopher:

just to let you know but, um,

Colby:

but I thought I did it was horrible

Christopher:

but to to Colby's point.

Christopher:

If you didn't do anything wrong, it's okay to stand up for yourself, and it's a you can.

Colby:

I'm showing Christopher a picture of him. You can tell he's a small man.

Christopher:

I can tell oh boy, I'm judging hardcore.

Colby:

He was, honestly he might have legally been considered a little person.

Colby:

I think. What is that for men under 4'11? Sorry, this is unprofessional of me. He was an evil man, okay.

Christopher:

I gotta recoup. But yeah, you have to make sure to stand up for yourself because you are right. If you did it right, you did it right.

Colby:

Yeah, I did not have the confidence during that time to know that I did it right. He had me convinced I messed something up and that, like the patient, could die because of my mess up.

Colby:

Over an EKG. That was done exactly on time. Yeah, that's a wild behavior wild behavior

Christopher:

And to be able to get it on time as a nurse.

Colby:

Yeah, that's, that's, that's a triumph that's a gold star, that's a five star day.

Colby:

Three michelin star restaurant quality

Christopher:

wow yeah, I love, I love some restaurants. That's like the analogy, um, but I would say my wins and woes. So I'm really struggling to think of the, the medication right now in my head. I'm I really don't want to ask, because I'm trying to think of it and I know I should know it and it's so sad that I cannot think of the actual medication.

Colby:

Oh, what does it do?

Christopher:

It's uh, it helps, uh. The thing is, if I tell you what I really wouldn't, is it?

Colby:

Sildenafil.

Christopher:

Huh?

Colby:

Sildenafil?

Christopher:

Oh no, no, no no,

Colby:

oh, I do. You know why I asked them. It sounds like you were like it's an what it really does, but what it could also do.

Colby:

It's like erectile dysfunction, pulmonary hypertension

Christopher:

I can see where you're coming from with that. Um man, I really people. So it's, it's the primary drug for um heart attacks. It's the first thing.

Colby:

Nitro?

Christopher:

Oh my god, thank you. Oh, I legitimately cannot think of it okay that.

Christopher:

That is terrible.

Colby:

Wow that means, your brain needs sleep.

Christopher:

Well, something, it something.

Christopher:

Today was a day I dropped a vial of glutathione and broke it. I have never, broken a vial of glutathione.

Colby:

I smashed a bottle of Bumex recently.

Christopher:

Did you really?

Colby:

Oh, I smashed it. It looked like I spiked it. It was by accident. It just fell out of my hand and hit the right angle and just glass everywhere, shattered Bumex.

Colby:

Bumex, Bumex smells gross, by the way.

Christopher:

Yeah, no, I know, but I literally was opening the door because it needs to be refrigerated and the door hit my elbow and I dropped it and I was like, and my, my day continued to go down from there.

Colby:

You had my day from yesterday.

Christopher:

So I was like, hopefully it wouldn't translate to this podcast, but I can't remember nitro, so so nitro paste uh also helps with a, you know, vasodilating the veins to allow for more veins for the heart and hopefully subsiding the feelings of a heart attack right.

Christopher:

And we were given this when I was on a Clin 1 because I worked on a vascular intermediate floor. So we did a bunch of different things in terms of like. We did the heart stuff but we did like tmas, bkas, akas, uh, tele or transmetatarcel amputation, below knee amputation and above knee amputation and other things like that. But I had a patient that was having a bunch of chest pain and they were like they put in an order for nitro paste. I went and got the nitro paste and automatically put the nitro paste on the patient. Going to Colby's point on knowing side effects of medication, one side effect of medication of nitro or nitro paste is that it lowers blood pressure, and I do not check the blood pressure.

Colby:

So what happened?

Christopher:

Luckily it wasn't terrible. We just gave some more fluid and it brought it up. But you know, I it was, it was it was close, i t was like 80 over 40.

Christopher:

It was bad.

Christopher:

You know, this was right when I had gotten off of orientation and I had done a thing and my charge nurse was there and actually this charge nurse it was on night shift. This charge nurse was absolutely amazing and really great and really sweet and very motherly and like not my preceptor at that time, but was very and very motherly and like not my preceptor that time, but was very, very motherly, very sweet, and she saw me do it and she went and did it a little like quick blood pressure, like immediately after me, and you know, I'm just, I'm worried because this person's having chest pain you're focused on pain.

Christopher:

You're focused on the chest pain and I'm so you know and this is something that you as a Clin 1 probably will encounter being so task forward and task minded, that you forget that we as nurses have to critically think. And so she did it, and she didn't say anything to me during the time. You know we fixed the issue, but I came back out afterwards. She was like Christopher, you know you did great, you did the things, but remember what medications do? She was like I grabbed the blood pressure and luckily we were able to fix things, but like that could have gone bad. And you know, and she was very, very motherly in her statement, and I was very encouraged to hear her say that.

Christopher:

So that was my woe, my win. We had lysis. We had lysis patients having a line being put in their femoral artery and pumped TPA in it so that the the clots in their legs will kind of undo right. So we, we were, because we were IMU we had to do I'm pretty sure it was hourly at the time.

Christopher:

it's been a while pedal pulse checks pedal and posterior tibial and we also, a lot of the times because of this, their pulses weren't good anyway. So we had to use a Doppler right, and so when you got a Doppler, you used it and you traced it and you found it and you hear that whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, and it was always cool, like you know. It was always cool, like you know it's really neat. But if sometimes you wouldn't hear it because it was clogged right and that's that just yeah, that's why they're there getting that treatment right.

Christopher:

but if you, if you start to learn a little bit about the, the physiology of things, you break a clot and it goes away. You bring all this blood, nutrition and all this stuff back to that part of the, the leg, you have a higher risk of um, I had it in my head

Colby:

Is it compartment?

Christopher:

Compartment syndrome.

Christopher:

Thank you.

Christopher:

You have a higher risk of compartment syndrome, and I was being a diligent nurse and I found it, and then you had to. Like you had to. That's what we had. You had to monitor the leg size.

Christopher:

So we had tape and you would monitor the leg size and I realized it was starting to get hard and firm and it was getting bigger, and so that person had to go down to emergent OR for fasciotomy to get the compartment syndrome released, and so that was my win. I was like, oh yay. You're like I caught that, I caught that, and actually that was when I was on, as, oh yeah, you're like, I caught that, I caught that, so and actually that was when I was on as a preceptee at the time and my preceptor was like yay, you know, good job, I can't believe this, I can't believe this.

Christopher:

So it was really cool to kind of really see that.

Colby:

Yeah, it's like one of those things that can happen.

Colby:

It's something that that's why we do all the monitoring, but you don't see it like that often. So like when it does happen, you're like, oh shit, this is happening. This is what I've been training for. We can do this. Yeah, we did, I did. I had like a similar um when, win I was a it wasn't a new grad, it was at my um second job where I worked in post it was like step down from CVICU so cardiovascular ICU, surgical side, and I had someone with a chest tube and they started to get crepitus and like it obviously always a risk when you have a chest tube, but like you don't see it that often. And crepitus is like when air gets under the skin tissue and it feels like we called it like snap, crackle, pop, like you can press on the skin and you can feel like the air bubbles, um.

Colby:

So yeah, I've also had a similar like oh, there's crepitus here. I know what this is.

Christopher:

That's cool, yeah um, I will say another woe. That's actually really fun and just a fun thing to remember I wear. When I wore scrubs I don't have a butt, so I wore a belt to keep my scrubs on, because I had to keep my scrubs off. I don't have a butt to keep them up and I had a lot of stuff in my pockets. Thank you very much.

Christopher:

I had my clipboard, my brain, my flushes, my stethoscope was hanging on the edge, like you know, because I didn't hang it around my neck, I had it in a little like holster thing, um. So I had a lot of stuff weighing it down, but my butt didn't help. Um, but yeah, so the the belt had it's an, it's an under armor, like sports-esque or like golf-esque um belt, and so you kind of like strapped it in and then you know, closed it down, but the buckle was metal and I had a patient that needed to go down for a MR I.

Colby:

Oh, we should have taken it off.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had to get all the stuff off and was like, let me get this all off, blah, blah, blah. And that was a.

Christopher:

I went down for the MRI, took all of the stuff off, took all the things out, you know, did all the things, did your, did all the things when your pants fall no, no, no that's what we were getting to when and um my patient actually had dentures in it because I worked in home health and um nursing homes, I reached my finger and popped, that did. I was like. I was like okay, good, and basically know, I feel this thing like vibrating near my like nether regions and I'm like

Colby:

what's going on here?

Christopher:

what's going on?

Christopher:

And I realized I'm like it's my belt. My belt buckle was trying to get pulled away from my body, and so the MRI machine is always on. Make sure you take all the metal off.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's an important one. I've been down at MRI and I've taken everything off, but I had like a bobby pin in my hair oh, forgot about it and I was like, oh, oh, I need to get out of here. Like it's just like a weird tingly feeling.

Colby:

Like when you feel it start to pull like your belt is vibrating. I feeling like when you feel it start to pull like your belt is vibrating. I also feel like I've been down there when I've absolutely had nothing, like I've taken everything off, and I still feel like that magnet is so powerful, makes you feel weird.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah all right, let's. Let's get to um, the last part of the the segment. If you have any wins and woes in your first year of nursing, please let us know. We would love to hear them, we'd love to laugh, we'd love to cry with you. Um, it is kind of fun and uh, interesting to hear, but like we don't. Interestingly enough, we talk a lot during the the podcast, but we don't get to. Really, we try to stay away from work if we yeah, outside we try to on topics.

Colby:

Let's be friends outside of work, right?

Christopher:

so we talked about newbies being specifically clin 1s, but that can also transition to those being clin 2s, clin 3s and clin 4s. You know I well Colby had went to multiple different units and within different hospitals. I have just transitioned from, you know, a different unit and then a different role, but you still are new and those still causes problems and everything. I think one major thing that I kind of wanted to hit on because I'm not we're not done talking this long thing that I kind of wanted to hit on because I'm not, we're not done talking this long, we'll probably talk at a more length later um is the whole. You've got to let your pride go yeah you've got to.

Christopher:

It's okay to not know yeah, you've.

Colby:

I'm just gonna say, just have to. I think we said it a bunch in the beginning, but you just have to like be willing to ask questions, right, there is no stupid question, except for the ones that are not asked. I love that. I'm gonna keep saying it.

Christopher:

Well, there you go for that um and yeah and it. You know, just because a nurse that is experience wise, younger than you in terms of general nursing practice, is teaching you something that is specific to a specialized practice Doesn't mean that you're stupid. Doesn't mean that you're being belittled.

Christopher:

Doesn't mean that you need to prove yourself.

Colby:

like humble yourself, like if you're coming in with experience and there's someone that's younger as your preceptor like just humble yourself a little bit, be more open minded.

Colby:

And that's something I experienced frequently because and we touched on this a few podcasts ago but the longevity in bedside nursing is dwindling, side nursing is dwindling, and there's often, I would say, like five years or less is probably the average and we should probably look up the numbers because I'm actually curious, but from my perspective, it feels like most nurses is five years or less these days recently, and so you'll find that a lot of times, a preceptor, if you have a lot of experience, if you're coming in as a traveler specifically, you might find that your preceptor is younger.

Colby:

Have a lot of experience. If you're coming in as a traveler specifically, you might find that your preceptor is younger than you and you just have to go in with it with an open mind, a curious mind. You know, because you have experience and you've done it for a long time. You need to be open-minded to how they're doing it at that institution. You've got to learn their way and just know that that is going to happen over and over again yeah, which is yeah, you just you've got to, you got to be willing to do it yeah, you can't be rigid.

Colby:

you've got to be flexible. Don't be the person that says why do you do it this way, because this way is better, like Nobody wants to hear that. And if they're showing you something like there's a policy, we're going to do it to what the policy says. There's just nothing worse. And it's really hard to not be that person because I do it a lot in my head. When I went to new places, I'd be like why are they doing it this way? This is not the most efficient way, but you just don't be saying it out loud over and over again. They don't give a crap and they're doing it the way that their hospital wants them to do it. So that's how you have to do it if you're working there.

Christopher:

And it may be the only way they've known too.

Colby:

Yeah, yeah and again ask questions. I mean, don't ask why you do it this way, but you can say oh, have you ever seen it done this way? And they can give you feedback on that it's just all in how your tone is, how open-minded you are. It's a lot of just being nice, like if you're a new person at a new hospital, like Christopher said, like you have to get rid of that pridefulness.

Colby:

You, if you want to be well received and you want to have a positive experience, it always helps to like start with kindness yeah yourself and hope that you get that in return, for sure yeah, I'd also like to say like being the new person, if you are a good way to like establish that you're a good worker and a hard worker and you care, if you have the availability to help others when you're when they need help the same way you would I I hope in anything else that you offer that help. I feel like I've worked with people and I think the difference between not that being liked is the most important thing, but the difference between being well-liked and working well as a team and not is your willingness to be outgoing and friendly and help others. I've seen people like just come to work and do care for their four patients and then when they're like having downtime, they don't like help anybody else. They just sit in a corner and they like have headphones in or something or they're just like doing their own thing.

Colby:

Like that's, you're not going to end up having a positive experience in those situations. You're probably not going to be welcomed into the fold as easily. It's just like being kind of standoffish and cold is never going to get you anywhere right. So if you want to fit in easier or have an easier time in the setting like, it helps to just be more helpful. It's a good way to make a friend for when you're in the weeds.

Christopher:

There, it is All right. Class dismissed.

Colby:

Let's wrap it up.

Christopher:

That's a wrap for today's session of Nursing Lyfe 101. We hope you found some useful takeaways to bring back to the floor. Remember, nursing is a lifelong learning journey and we're here with you.

Colby:

If you want to connect, find us on Twitter at NurseLyfe101, or on Facebook at NursingLyfe101. And don't forget to subscribe and share with fellow nurses. Until next time, take care of yourselves and keep making a difference out there.

People on this episode

Contributor

Christopher Henderson

Co-host
Contributor

Colby Daniel

Co-host