I’ve now worked 6 days at my new workplace, a hospital in the Thuringian forest. My station is for gastroenterology, rheumatology and unclear/psychosomatic diseases.

The onboarding process is at least happening, but it’s not as organized as I hoped it to be. The station is always very busy and so, there’s little time to show me things. For example, as someone with a background in geriatrics and nursing homes, I hadn’t dealt with infusions at all and my internship at a neurological rehabilitation centre during my retraining only had me disconnecting empty infusions and “flushing” the lines with NaCl = sterilised sodium chloride/salt water. I rarely helped with preparing them. Now that’ll be one of my primary duties. So my new colleagues have to teach me, which isn’t very easy for either of us during stressful times.

It also doesn’t help that nurses who worked in geriatrics or nursing homes are generally looked down upon by a few older colleagues in the hospital due to the less intense medical knowledge needed in that field. I kinda feel the need to prove myself, unfortunately. In Germany, nursing is no academic profession like in the US - it used to be 3 different apprenticeships: one for children, one for adults/hospital work and one for seniors/geriatric care. Since 2020, it’s a generalized apprenticeship with a new title. There’s also a B.Sc. course for it now for a bit of academic value. As I started my retraining in 2022, I received the new title but some of the old guard aren’t even that aware of all those changes. To them, those who worked in the geriatric field are the less qualified, less skilled nurses.

There’s also yet another winter storm over here and I still deal with some nuisances from a minor cold I got on the very first day of the new year. Today I had to fight to keep my car on the road due to all the fresh snow. It won’t be much better tomorrow, as it rained with warmer temperatures in the afternoon but now it’s freezing over with a cold blast of -11°C. So it’ll be slippery AF tomorrow. Yes, I actually already work 7 days in a row on my first week. As I said, trying to prove myself. Like my mom said, to describe what I am dealing with atm: “Hardcore is an understatement”.

Unfortunately the exhaustion and early shifts (have to get up at 4:00 AM) leaves barely any time for hobbies, nor even any shaves. I must admit that I ordered an electric head shaver for some morning touchups where every damn second counts… Not my proudest move, as these things are neither close nor comfortable. Yet I need to look presentable as I represent the nursing staff of the hospital. I hope things will change for the better soon, but don’t be worried if I’m posting less frequently and am barely active here. Chances are that I am just working, not dead!