Customer Reviews

First Year Nurse: Wisdom, Warnings, and What I Wish I'd Known My First 100 Days on the Job

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found this little book very cute. It was like a small circle of nurse-friends offering pointers, some emotional, some in frustration, some in humor; ALL with the intent of helping the new nurse understand his/her new world.

This book is very short, and elementary. I thought it would have a few actual tips and stories. It is actually just a book of short sentences from random nurses that express common sense thoughts and personal feelings.

I bought this book as a present for my daughter that is in Nursing School. She just loved it. The book is written in an easy to read manner for short tips. She found really good and usefull tips in this book. It's just the right size to fit in a pocketbook to read on the go. The shipping was great and it came without scrapes and bends that one sometimes recieves books in.

I bought an earlier edition of this book around the end of my first year out of nursing school. It was called "Training Wheels for Nurses: What I Wish I Had Known My First 100 Days on the Job: Wisdom, Tips, and Warnings from Experienced Nurses" when I bought it.

Some of it is a little too cutesy for me ("Nothing like eating microwave popcorn out of a clean, disposable bedpan..." -- srsly? please...).

However, parts of it had really good advice, especially about developing your own system or "brain" for giving report/shift change (unless, like my current job, the report format is imposed on you by management), and also on using experienced nurses' "brains" until you find the one that works for you.

The section on delegating is also helpful for those who have never delegated before. Advice on how to be assertive to experienced nurses who "eat their young" -- as well as avoiding lazy fellow RNs/care techs, new RNs who are in "panic" mode, and letting the inevitable crap you get from some experienced nurses who think they know everything even though they haven't read anything new since they graduated in 1975 -- was advice I could have used in my first year. Unfortunately, like I said, I didn't find the book at my local Borders until the *end* of my first year of my first RN job. :-\

I came to nursing in my late 30s after a career in a totally different field. I was NOT clinical staff prior to going into nursing school. That may be why I found the book so useful.

If you worked as a CNA or PCT before getting your RN or BSN, you may not find this book useful. It's really more geared to those TOTALLY new to nursing and health care.

But it's good enough that I'm going to buy a copy for my cousin when she finishes nursing school. She too has come from a totally different field, so she will get to her first RN job out of nursing school with no experience in a clinical setting except for the clinicals she had in nursing school.

That's how I was too. That's probably why the book was useful to me. Could it be better? Yes. It could also be much, much worse. I've read a couple other "new RN" books since I found this one... and they were complete twaddle, just feel-good, useless advice, pep-talks, and "chicken soup for the new nurse's soul" kind of crap. That's not what the new nurse needs. The new RN needs PRACTICAL advice.

Fortunately, this book actually *has* practical advice.

It is in an anecdotal format, organized by topics (which are broken up by chapters). The organization of the book may also have irked some clinically experienced readers.

If I could start over my first year after I graduated from nursing school, I would buy this book at the BEGINNING of my first year at my first RN job... not the end of it, which is the way it turned out for me.

I BOUGHT THIS FOR MY DAUGHTER WHO HAS JUST BEGUN NURSING SCHOOL & SHE SAYS IT IS VERY INFORMATIVE & WILL READ IT AGAIN WHEN SHE STARTS HER NURSING CAREER.

Very helpful for any one just out of nursing school and heading into their first nursing job

The book is very small and only offers tidbits and quotes from nurses. A lot is common sense, you won't be learning too much here. Good for a cute gift or stocking stuffer but you won't gain a lot of insight. I agree with the previous review of pretty elementary stuff here.

This book is little, like pocket-sized. It's fun and convenient but gets old fast. The advice is good but a lot of it is common sense. Good gifting material.

I got this book for my friend (We are both new nurses)for her birthday. She loves it! I ended up getting myself a copy. A cute/fun read!

This book was helpful to me as a new nurse. It taught me to keep an open mind about colleagues and some things to expect as a new nurse. It is inexpensive and worth the money.