We can’t know everything in nursing…

A lot of my students tell me they are afraid they won’t know everything when they graduate. They make this statement with a hint of question in their voice asking if they chose the right program, or if they didn’t learn as much as they should have. My answer is always “no matter what program you choose, everyone feels this way. Sometimes I still feel like I know nothing.”

As nurses, we cannot expect nor be expected to know everything…especially as new grads. I had an older, very experienced nurse come up to me and say “I don’t know about these new grads. They don’t seem to know anything!” Of course they don’t. Relatively speaking, new grads will not know everything that an experienced nurse knows. New grads just have to know how to learn! All nursing school is is a place to teach aspiring nurses the tip of the iceberg in nursing, but more importantly, giving them the resources to look up and find out what they don’t know.

We need to give new grads a break. They are scared to death of making a mistake and with the added pressure of people watching their every move expecting them to make a mistake. We set them up for failure, and then we say they don’t know anything. It isn’t fair. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them show us that they know how to learn.