I survived.....

1 and so did the patients. Had my first shift as charge RN. Had to do a post-op admission about 0230 with only a few minor difficulties. Primarily, it would have been helpful if protocol orders were used instead of written since the surgeon was obviously a little brain dead after doing the surgery about midnight & left some info out (route for med, no O2 order which was needed when sats dropped every time pt dosed). Was not happy when I had to call him. All in all though, learned a lot - what to do, what not to do - & get to do it again in a couple weeks...
Congratulations on your success at charge.Be careful what you wish for.The charge position is all responsibility and no authority.I wish I had NEVER accepted the charge position I had for years.Please think about the ramifications... carefully.

Yeah, I'd rather NOT do it, but on nights just about everybody does at some point. We've had 1 RN go to a different hospital & 3 others that changed shifts in the last 3-4 months, so that bumps me up with a couple newer RNs behind me in seniority. So, it looks like I'll probably be charging occasionally, once every couple weeks so far on the schedule. It was good to know I had help available from the supervisor & the general med/surg charge! And I used them!

congrats!!!! at least you can say that you did it and survived!, even though it's not your cup of tea :d

Congratulations! I can relate... my first time as charge nurse was a night shift as well. All of the nurses I was working with had <6 months of experience and one of the patients was actively dying on hospice care. This was a couple months ago and I was just hitting 1.5 years of experience. 'Twas a little scary, but everyone lived (even the hospice patient). It gets easier but as BTDT said, all the responsibility and no authority...

Congratulations! Big, major accomplishment, check! So when you are a charge nurse the next time in your schedule, remember, you survived the first time! You can do anything.

Thanks everybody! Looks like I get to go at it again next Tues (a little sooner than I was thinking)!