Nursing Student Coach

Med Surg Nurse Life: Tales From a Newbie with Max Griffin

Lauren Chapnick Season 1 Episode 16

Ready to walk a mile in a nurse's shoes? Join us this week as we sit down with newly graduated nurse, Max Griffin. Max pulls back the curtain on life as a novice nurse, taking us on a raw and unfiltered journey from the Manhattanville College Accelerated nursing program to a bustling city hospital's medical-surgical floor. Uncover the highs and lows, the butterflies in the stomach, and the intense eight-week orientation that challenged but didn't break him. Listen as Max narrates his tale of navigating the health care labyrinth with the help of a supportive manager and unit nurses.

Step into Max's shoes as he navigates the terrain of a medical-surgical floor, where every day is a new challenge and every patient a different puzzle. Experience firsthand the hurdles of language barriers and the lifelines that are phones and video cameras. Feel the weight of the emotional and physical exhaustion that comes with the territory, and the resilience that keeps him going. Max opens up about how he and his partner find strength in each other and manage their emotions in this high-pressure environment. He also shares insights into the critical role of documentation and the importance of meticulousness in medication management. Whether you're a nursing student, an experienced nurse, or just someone interested in understanding the intricacies of nursing, Max's story promises to be a unique, eye-opening experience.

Speaker 1:

Nursing school is a wild ride, but that doesn't mean you have to run and hide when the going gets tough. Don't leave your stress undiagnosed. You gotta call the nursing student coach. Real-life tips from a registered nurse, in school and out. She's seen the worst. Now, without further ado, yeah, here is your host. It's the nursing student coach.

Speaker 2:

It is my personal mission to help put more great nurses into the world. So if you could just take the two seconds to pull out your phone, give us a quick five star rating, I would appreciate it so much and if you like what you hear, please share it with a friend who you know could benefit. Today we're going to be talking about what it's like to be a new nurse Because, like I've said before, nursing school ends, you'll pass your NCLEX on the first try and you will step into this new role as a working nurse, as an RN, and it's very exciting.

Speaker 2:

Today's guest is Max Griffin. He graduated from Manhattanville College Accelerated nursing program past his NCLEX and he is working at a city hospital on a med surge floor and he'll tell you all about his experience and all about the kinds of patients that he is Seeing on his unit, what it's been like, what he's learned, and also we'll hear from him and our other guests who will be coming on in the coming months what. What have they learned? What are the biggest things that they've learned so far as a new nurse, and what do they wish they had done differently in nursing school in order to prepare them? I think it's such an important conversation to have and we're just going to keep it going. So, without further ado, I would like to welcome Max Griffin. Hi Max, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Congratulations on well, first of all, passing your NCLEX, graduating nursing school. But now you are a new nurse and you're working on a med-surge unit. What has the adjustment period been like for you? You've been working almost three months now. What has it been like adjusting to life as a working nurse?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so coming up on three months, it was a long process. I interviewed in May and then officially was hired in July after about a month of background checks. We did two weeks of class, virtual and non-virtual, did a lot of modules which I know the students are familiar with those, and now I've actually been on the unit for about eight weeks.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, and are you still technically on orientation or are you on your own?

Speaker 3:

I'm on my own.

Speaker 2:

How long were you on orientation before they put you out there by yourself?

Speaker 3:

So our orientation it was supposed to be eight weeks total.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay.

Speaker 3:

But I did about six. There was a decent amount of paperwork. We did weekly check-ins. I had a checklist of things that I was supposed to do a number of times. It's a small community hospital within New York, presbyterian, and what I mean by that is the whole hospital has 175 beds.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And our unit has 32. We do our own phlebotomy, so things like that are on the checklist.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you had to be signed off on certain skills before they said okay.

Speaker 3:

You got to do three IB access, you got to do three blood draws, you have to do a blood transfusion, things like that.

Speaker 2:

Did you feel ready? The first day you were on your own. How did you feel? How did you feel?

Speaker 3:

I was pretty terrified. Honestly, it was the middle of week six and my preceptor called out.

Speaker 2:

Oh no.

Speaker 3:

So we had five nurses for 32 patients and I had been taking teams of five and in this culture we call our patients teams.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

I had been taking teams.

Speaker 2:

Confusing, because you think of team as your coworker. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So they in the morning we say oh, my team's heavy, or my team is okay, or these are the patients on my team. And okay, I had been under observation and my preceptor called out and we were two short staff. So my nurse manager said I think you can do this. Do you want me to watch you today? I'm going to give you six. And it was a tough day but we made it and I think we all took six that day.

Speaker 2:

Did you have a lot of support from your manager and from the other nurses on the team. On the other, the other nurses on the floor.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I had support. We support each other in terms of anything that's tricky for us to do, okay.

Speaker 2:

That's good. I mean, wow, nothing like being just thrown into it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, my first day was a shadow. My second day on the unit I had one patient. My second week I had three and my third week I had five. It was fast, it was pretty fast.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you feel like you were prepared adequately or do you feel like you wish you had more time precepting, shadowing in the classrooms, skills lab, whatever it may be.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think my coworkers thought it was unfair. Okay, they sort of made me push back and say I needed the extra time. But after that day that I took six on, like week six, it didn't feel right for me to just pretend that I wasn't ready, even if I maybe wasn't completely ready.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And I felt like my skills were there. If I could just emotionally handle the actual stress of the unit, it would be fine. And so I just said yes and I just sort of you know, I don't want to say fake it until I make it, because I was ready, but I just asked for a lot of help in those first two weeks.

Speaker 2:

Do you feel like how are your other coworkers? Do you feel generally as the new guy? Do you feel like they treat you fairly? Do you feel like they're there to? Do you feel comfortable going to everybody to ask questions? That kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I like everyone I work with and we have a good relationship with each other. We definitely are struggling right now just because this unit is being renovated. There's like construction going on and they're changing the call bells to a new system and the actual crew on the day shift is very welcoming and warm and nice to each other, and I think part of that is just the fact that, because the units being remodeled, we're all in a little bit more chaotic situation than maybe a normal general floor would be.

Speaker 2:

Right. So you're on days. You got hired for days right from the start, which is extremely rare.

Speaker 3:

I was really grateful. Actually, in the interview for the night's position, they offered me days.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And they said would that be something you would consider? And I said absolutely, put me on days, I will do it.

Speaker 2:

Wow, some people wait two years to be put on days, yeah, so. Is your unit generally understaffed, or was it just that? Okay, yeah, so basically, after the day that your preceptor happened to be out, you've just been flying solo.

Speaker 3:

Flying solo. We have usually four or five staff and then one or two travelers. It's a very well run unit that is in the process of hiring, I think, four or five more nurses. But if you imagine I got hired in May, hit the floor in July the people that got hired in July are just now starting their orientation and they won't be off until, I think, early December. Okay, yeah, so it's going to be tight for a bit.

Speaker 3:

It takes about five months total from the day you interview until the day that you're considered by yourselves.

Speaker 2:

Ready, yeah. What would you say are the biggest things that you have learned so far? And it doesn't even have to be skills related. What would you say you've learned?

Speaker 3:

I don't want to say this in the wrong way, but I have focused a lot on when can I give like 120% and when can I give like 90%, because it's not sustainable to give as much energy as you possibly have every single day, and that's I mean is, for example, our days where I help my coworkers with their patient load, as well as my own.

Speaker 2:

What I'm hearing is just kind of maintaining your energy throughout the day and not over-exhilarating yourself in the beginning, because it can be really emotionally taxing and you're working day shift, which is when the family members of the patients are there, so I'm sure they can be more draining sometimes than the patients themselves, and what to say. Okay, but that's a great answer. What? What kind of med surge floor are you on? What kind of patients do you have on your roster usually?

Speaker 3:

So we're a general medical surgical floor. We get primarily three types of patients. We get patients coming from the OR and those would stereotypically be a little younger. Maybe they had like a cervical spine fusion or a lumbar spine fusion, maybe they had an appendectomy or an endoscopy colonoscopies, maybe they just had an ostomy put in. Generally speaking, those are like young, healthy people who are just recovering from a surgery. And then number two is elderly patients from the community, primarily Chinese because we are close to Chinatown. And then the third I would say is a broader category which is I don't want to say social admits or psych admits, because they're not necessarily psychiatric in nature, but it's people from the emergency room who are struggling for some reason. Either their blood sugar is really high or it's really low. Maybe they're experiencing some sort of substance induced psychosis or delirium. Those are also from the community, but they come from the emergency room.

Speaker 2:

Right, which is where I am or will be or will be. That's okay. You have a real broad spectrum. You probably see so many conditions from post-op to some psych patients, diabetes With the Chinese patients. Do you use the interpreter? How's the language barrier and culturally competent care aspect of the job?

Speaker 3:

It's honestly the wildest thing I've ever experienced. We all have iPhones.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And that's how we do all of our med administration.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Do you use it to interpret? You mean?

Speaker 3:

Yes, and we use it to scan everything.

Speaker 2:

Oh, like through the hospital, through your phone. Okay, what if somebody doesn't have an iPhone? It works on Android too.

Speaker 3:

They give us iPhones through the hospital.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, okay, so it's not your personal phone.

Speaker 3:

No it's not my personal phone.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

And it has a translator app on it with, I think, like 100 languages. We also have video cameras you can wheel into the rooms.

Speaker 2:

Right. Do you use those?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I've learned. It's tough because there's Cantonese Mandarin and then there's also like Fuzo and some other dialects I've now learned.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's a lot of different Chinese dialects and then I say on a typical day I have two or three English speaking, maybe one or two Spanish only and then one or two Chinese only is most common.

Speaker 2:

Right, wow, okay, that is. That is a huge learning opportunity.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So is there anything that they didn't teach you in nursing school that you wish that they had? That would have better prepared you for this job.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's some things. You just can't learn it so hard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 3:

What? Having patients expire has been challenging.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

I've only had patients expire so far that have been expected to like in hospice and palliative care.

Speaker 2:

Right, have they passed on your shift?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, on my shift.

Speaker 2:

What was, what was that? Like, like, what was the first time? Like, if you don't mind sharing it's challenging.

Speaker 3:

I don't know how to describe it. It's like a very watered down version of what you might experience in your personal life, just because you don't know them that way, how do you not take that home with you, or?

Speaker 2:

yeah just not help it. Like, what do you do to kind of separate yourself from it and go home and live your life after that? Because that's really emotionally taxing.

Speaker 3:

I'd be like listening to podcasts and stuff. I don't know I think it helps that I'm on the train for 40 minutes.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's sort of maybe some people drive to work, but yeah, you take public transportation.

Speaker 3:

I take the train and I just try as hard as I can. It was not as easy in the beginning until my partner Thea, we would talk and I guess we just kind of figured it out together. Where I said I think I'm going to have to tell you less about my day, and I just tell her in general terms, okay, because I cannot, in good conscious, like, transfer trauma to her over dinner after being on the unit for 12 hours. Yeah, right, it's hard.

Speaker 2:

It's hard knowing, because they're your partner and they're there to support you, but like they don't need to have that all of that dumped on them.

Speaker 3:

She wants to know what my day is like, but I usually just say, well, it's kind of bad or it was pretty good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you may also not want to relive all of that. You might just want to leave it at the door and yeah. I'm sure you'll figure it out. Like you're just starting, you'll kind of figure out how that will go.

Speaker 3:

But I said to a friend the other day like 12 hours is long enough to have a good day and a bad day and you're still at work. That's. That's something they could teach in nursing school is. Actually having to use the landline phone to call all of these different hospital systems has been a huge challenge. Yes calling for report calling pack you calling the OR calling the kitchen, calling the ultrasound people are I like I'm on the phone a lot?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, during the day, how has learning had a document been going for you? Is that part of it?

Speaker 3:

It's okay. I'm fortunate that I have two or three nurses on the unit that have 10 plus years experience. That's great, and they say to me things like you will witness nurses get suspended. It's not like it happens often, but you'll see it, yeah, you do not want to be that person.

Speaker 2:

No document document document.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it is extremely hard to make med errors with the system we have in place.

Speaker 2:

But that's good.

Speaker 3:

If you are cutting corners and doing things like pulling multiple meds for multiple patients, you can still. You can still make errors. So right. We actually have a policy on my unit. We do one patient at a time. That's smart and as a student I saw in some of my clinicals people pulling meds for like their whole med.

Speaker 2:

You know they would put everything in label, which is I saw yeah, I saw that too and I just thought how can you keep this straight, especially if you get pulled off to do some? It's crazy. So that's that's good, that they have that policy, yeah. So One last question that I ask everybody who is either a student or a recent Graduate if you could go back in time and you had to start nursing school all over again, what is one thing that you would either tell yourself or that you would do differently in nursing school, knowing everything that you know now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we had talked about me playing cards on my iPad. Don't download games on your own games onto your school computer. Um I On day one day one, I'm a nursing student. I was so Intimidated by my colleagues who had hospital experience.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm and in retrospect those people became like my biggest allies during the hardest parts of nursing school and I just could have, I could have been a little less afraid to approach them and just be honest and say, look, this is a huge career shift for me. I think that's one thing I had thought about, just not not feeling like the odd one out, because everybody feels that way.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think everybody, even if they had hospital experience, didn't have a nursing experience and very different. And you have people experience, talking to people, which is a lot of what the job is. So I think that's really good advice because you can feel like so overwhelmed. But I think the people that you're going to school with are Are your biggest allies and they're the ones who are going through it with you and understand it the best. So I think that's really good Because we're you like. I was psychotic about grades, but even grades don't. They don't matter at all. Nobody looked at my grades to get a job. They didn't care. I they're like do you have your license? Great, and now it's just all how you interview and what you say in your cover letter.

Speaker 3:

That's it. They don't care about your GP. I think that's such an amazing thing. You just said is day one nursing student, you feel like I need to get good grades, I need to do this, I need to do that, you need to just take care of yourself and, of course, you need to pass your classes.

Speaker 2:

But after a good day. Nobody has to If you have good grades and you learned it, great. But if you learned it and you passed, that's also great. Yeah, it is better to take care of yourself, and you learn that as a new nurse too, that you have to take care of yourself.

Speaker 3:

If your dream is to become an NP or a CRNA or a CCRN these specialties then maybe you need to make sure that you have at least a 3-5. But first you have to develop skills, and I feel like that's what I purposefully put myself straight into a position where I would do a lot of general work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's really smart. You're getting your foundation and then do you think that you'll stay on this unit for a while, or do you see yourself I mean, I know you just started, it's hard to say, but you see yourself moving on in a couple of years to a different specialty. What do you kind of think is in your foreseeable future?

Speaker 3:

I'll be on this unit for a year. I still had that dream of trying flight nursing potentially Flight nurses. They expect two years in the emergency room or in the ICU.

Speaker 2:

Right. That's the baseline, and then the baseline Flight nursing for anybody listening who doesn't know is a nurse who's on a helicopter dealing with severe trauma People that are in car accidents airlifted out to a trauma center.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think probably ICU for me. We'll see.

Speaker 2:

ICU is maybe where you're headed next.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 2:

MedSurg is a great foundation for literally anything. That's what they tell us in school and you're living it now, so I think that's great for you. I'm so excited for you and I can't wait to hear more about your career and how everything is going for you. I cannot believe you were on your own after six weeks, that's, and you're just so laid back. You're just like, yeah, I'm just going to go for it, I'm just going to do it, and I'm glad that you got the support that you needed and that things are going well for you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, panic on the inside, calm on the outside. Right For our nursing students too. You can get pretty far with that.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a good lesson. I think that's how a lot of us live our lives anyway, but that's especially good as a nurse. Anyway, max, thank you so much for joining us today. This was awesome and I wish you luck in everything and we'll talk to you soon. Well, guys, that is going to do it for today. Max, thank you so much for joining us. That was such a great conversation and I think you helped a lot of future nurses just give a little preview of what life will be like as a new nurse. So thank you so much again and we will see you the next time. You can go to nursingstudentcoachcom to join our mailing list. Follow us on social media at nursingstudentcoach. Thanks again. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in to the Nursing Student Coach podcast.

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