It is not abnormal to start your nursing career and first job feeling uncertain of your knowledge and abilities. My primary concern in this new post was to learn the routine of the ward and learn about referring to others in the multidisciplinary team as well as escalating my patients to the medical teams when necessary. Learning these things has taken some weeks and now I find that I can just about manage my shift. I am improving my handover s but coming unstuck when others ask specific questions relating to treatment, such as medication. I live in dread of the question..'so, why is this patient on....?'. Currently it's still OK for me not to know the answer to such things as blood chemistry values etc but I want to know these things. So my current plan of action is to read up about specific topics on my days off. I choose one or two areas I need knowledge in and focus on reading a bit in the morning and again in the afternoon to gain more insight and understanding. This morning I read up about Warfarin and INR values and its antidote vitamin K. By placing this pharmaceutical within its historical perspective I feel I understand it well. My message here is that as new nurses our knowledge bases will vary, this does not make one better than the other. The trick is to identify where your particular weakness is and work hard to improve upon it. It is useless to have a nurse who super hot on the sciences but cannot communicate with sensitivity with the patient and their concerned family and conversely nursing isn't all about tea and sympathy to the detriment of sound medical knowledge. There lies the balance of art and science that is nursing.
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