As most of you know, I just recently completed my first full month on day shift at work. Wow, it has been quite an experience!
The first week went very smooth with a great patient assignment and with the luxury of focusing solely on the time adjustment. But then week two came.....
I spent the second-fourth week relearning to chart in our new computer system, (you just gotta LOVE Cerner! haha) learning the in's and out's of our new "space age" like radiant warmer beds, trialing a new feeding pump, which I will surely veto, and then learning the day shift norm:
* Sending/receiving two kiddos from the operating room: wouldn't be so bad if they worked around my schedule or even stuck to theirs- lesson learned, be flexible!
* One MRI: of course not standard, poor baby required me to administer sedation, but that was actually a great learning experience.
* Not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR patient discharges. This is actually a much larger task sometimes than imagined! Two to quite difficult families. One Dad which made quickly learn you have to draw the "your wont walk all over me" line on the first day. Another lesson learned!
* "Orienting" to the Pediatric ICU in order to prepare to "float" down there when they need extra help, which I had heard is every NICU RN's nightmare! It really went smooth, it is just a challenge to be out of your element and do things so differently.
Overall, there have been times that I have been incredibly happy with switching over to days, times where I nearly came home in tears threatening to switch back to nights. Surprisingly, some of the most rewarding moments have been family interactions. It feels so good to have families look you in the eyes and say thank you, request that you care for the their baby in the future, or trust in your opinion and advice, and most of all have them say "I think I will actually go get lunch today, I know she is in great hands".
