10 Words of Wisdom for New Nurses

3. If you do screw up, report it immediately.

Nobody is going to fire you, yell at you or make you feel like an idiot. (Chances are you’ll do that last one to yourself.) Everybody, even Super Nurse Extraordinaire, makes mistakes every day. That’s why we have procedures in place to, say, double-check settings on pumps and so on. If you screw up, it’s important to report it so you can have help figuring out why you screwed up and how to manage the situation in the future.

4. Ask questions.

Everybody asks questions, including Super Nurse Extraordinaire. Most of us ask them constantly. We all double-check each other, help each other out with weird titrations, give second opinions on whether or not that patient is more or less gorked than the day before. Your colleagues are part of a team that includes doctors and other nurses and X-ray techs and respiratory folks. Ask ’em all questions. If anybody tries to make you feel stupid, respond politely and be effusively thankful. That will embarrass them to no end.