The first clinical shift may feel like you are being thrown into an ocean with no life savers in sight. You don’t know where the clean equipment is, where the dirty utility is, where lab work goes, where to wash your hands, where the patient charts and MAR are kept, what you are suppose to document, the list goes on. Do not fret, you are not alone! Thankfully you have others in your clinical group who may be more or less just as clueless. What do you do? Remember, each unit of different hospitals, and even departments within a hospital has it own “unit culture”, norms and standard ways to do things that has been created by members of the unit. Therefore, this type of disoriented feeling can occur with every new placement, and it is absolutely normal. With each placement you may find it easier to adapt to the unit culture. Here are some tips that might help with orientating into a new unit.