Advice to myself on being present

My apologies to my readers out there for my lack of posts. Here's what happened. I had gotten complacent at work. I had been feeling pretty good about myself, actually, because we got the hospital-wide Press-Ganey surveys back for the month and I was the only nurse mentioned in it for out unit. And I was mentioned twice! So I didn't feel I had much to write about. 

But as per my neurotic pattern, anxiety strikes again, keeping me up and forcing me to write the demons out of my head. 

I had a crazy-busy day this week and by the end of my shift, I was more than ready to hand off my patients and blow that popsicle stand. As I was giving report, the experienced night shift nurse kept asking me questions, "When did she get that nephrostomy placed? Why is he getting Lasix?" etc times 100 more questions to which I had one reply: "I don't know. I didn't have time to check on that." 

And the crowning glory was the next morning when that same nurse pointed out to me I had charted a colostomy on a patient the entire day when she simply had a leaking incision with an colostomy bag over the site. All the previous nurses had charted the same, but we were all wrong. That's what I get for relying on hand-off report alone.

Poor assessment skills makes for a dangerous nurse. I stayed up all night wallowing in embarrassment and shame.

But that just left me feeling both physically and emotionally exhausted. So I have begun to identify where exactly I need to improve and  the steps to do so:

1. Take 5 minutes at the beginning of my shift to read the history and physical of my patients to understand for myself their status and background.

2. Take the time to really assess. Be present. This room, with this patient, is the only place I need to be right now. 

As long as I keep coming back to the principle of being present, I can accomplish my tasks while providing personalized, focused, excellent care.