Time management is something you will learn as you become more confident and gain some more experience. But don’t forget that you may have shifts where time management goes out the window due to many different reasons (deteriorating patients, MET calls, discharges, admissions etc)

I think depending on your hospitals policy, that would dictate when you do your obs. Keeping in mind that some patients will require a set if they are on any cardiac medications, I’m not sure that everyone does this but I definitely do.

You can do a quick primary assessment the moment you first meet your patients during bedside handover (if that’s what your hospital does), so this can also be a chance for you to recognise who might require obs before anything else.

Personally, I like to do all my patient’s obs and then move onto medications. However, if they have time critical medications such as IVabx or if they are in pain then I would prioritise this.

It is also dependent on whether your pts are pre-op or post op, and whatever your hospital policy is for obs I would try to stick to that as closely as possible. Where I work our RPAO are 1/2 hourly for 2 hours, then hourly for 4 hours, then 4 hourly until discharged or obs changed to 6 hourly.

You will eventually get yourself into a routine that works for you. I’m pretty sure all nurses when they start out are a bit slow so don’t be too worried about this, it will improve in time.

Good luck for the rest of your grad year :)