Orientation.

We look the same, no?

I was at the hospital yesterday. I was not expecting anything weird, but I ended up with both a new grad nurse on his last week of orientation and a student nurse. I didn’t quite understand that this was happening as the night turned into day, but when I finally came to my senses, I walked around whining to Bismark – the night charge – with these two people new-ish people trailing me, why me? (I usually get out of these things because I work so infrequently). And he said – well because you are a senior nurse and everyone else is busy. Hahahaha. So that’s what I did yesterday. Because the new grad nurse was 90% done with his orientation (he’s taking shifts by himself next week) I gave him all five of my patients and told him to start taking care of them and that I was available for any questions and I’d check behind him. And then I started bringing the student nurse with me showing her (with my extra time now that I had someone else essentially doing most of my job) all the things I found interesting as a student. It was an interesting day, I had a good time. The new grad nurse said it was the first time he was able to do most of the shift on his own and he gained confidence and I was always right there to answer any questions and still help people to the bathroom or do a few things like pick things up from pharmacy or security. The mix of five patients was perfect, interesting, but not too hard. Some standard challenges, but spaced well enough apart that the new hire can deal with them one at a time. I think for my trouble, I got an extra dollar and hour – so $12. Then Astra, the day charge, asked if I could work tomorrow (meaning today) and I said no.