how bad is this one????

Nurses New Nurse

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Im a newbie going into my fourth week of orientation. Some days, I seem to make really stupid mistakes. TOday I gave a med at 10a that was supposed to be given at 1op. all of the meds on the sheet said 10;00. However, red means pm and black means am.

No harm done to the pt., thank god, but I felt ridiculous. My preceptor is now compelled of course to probably not leave my side.:nono: I was just gaining a bit of autonomy, then I screwed up!!

Anyway, I just thought if anyone could share an experience or tell me how bad of an error this is... :uhoh21:

I feel like a dumass!:o

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Specializes in Looking at: ER-Trauma-CC.

That's why I love military time! Color coding times are a recipe for disaster IMO. Can't comment on how bad a mistake it is, but I would hope (think) that if it were a once daily type med, shouldn't be too bad.

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Notwithstanding that you made a med error by giving the med too early, I question the use of colors to delineate shifts. Smack dab in the middle of a "special" inspection by the state in my LTC facility, we changed from black, green, red to straight black. If nothing else, it makes it more difficult for anything out of the ordinary to jump out at someone who is looking at the documentation.

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Oh honey, don't beat yourself up too badly. At least it was the right med for the right patient. I had a nurse tell me once one of her mistakes when she was a nursing student. Instructor told her she could go ahead and D/C her pt's IV. Instead of pulling out her IV, she pulled out the pt's central line.... OOOOPS.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Im a newbie going into my fourth week of orientation. Some days, I seem to make really stupid mistakes. TOday I gave a med at 10a that was supposed to be given at 1op. all of the meds on the sheet said 10;00. However, red means pm and black means am.

No harm done to the pt., thank god, but I felt ridiculous. My preceptor is now compelled of course to probably not leave my side.:nono: I was just gaining a bit of autonomy, then I screwed up!!

Anyway, I just thought if anyone could share an experience or tell me how bad of an error this is... :uhoh21:

I feel like a dumass!:o

Don't beat yourself up.

Sounds more like a system error to me. Color coding is potentially confusing - why not use military time, or spell out more clearly AM and PM?

Does your hospital use incident reports or med error reports to improve systemic issues?

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personally i like the color idea....but one for each eight hour shift.....also, one thing this should teach you is to READ the whole order, not just take note of the time......this is prob the only kind of med error i have missed making....lol

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