[gt4everpn]

Originally Posted by sleepyndopey

Always make sure the patient takes all the meds before you leave the room. I've gone in to rooms and seen meds sitting on the patients bedside table that were from the previous shift. I've seen nurses get fired for this.

I work in LTC and I've seen a lot of nurses get written up for this same problem, some of the residents take the medicine and hold it in their mouths, there is this one little lady that takes like 10 min to take her pills, and even after that I'm still not sure she's got them down, i usually pass by her room again just to make sure she didnt put them in her cup or in the bed!

[P_RN]

OH YES latex....... I once broke out so bad on my hands I actually thought I had Kaposi's Sarcoma. I had these big bleebs full of blood all over the backs of my hands. I was off for Christmas day and the day after<-that's a legal holiday in SC..so I called a dermatologist I knew and he opened his office. He took one look and said you are allergic to latex.
Employee health wouldn't accept that and made me have a titre. Off the charts!!! Then the told me I'd have to buy my own gloves. Attorney took care of that.

But what helped more than all this is I ate some guacomole and about anaphylaxed.
Related to latex sources. THEN they believed me when I almost needed tubing.

SO to reiterate BELIEVE your patient if he says he's allergic even if the doc forgot to include it .
[I have latex, betadine, certain narcotic, and avocados on that $40 bracelet.]

[ERRNTraveler]

I once stopped a new grad RIGHT before she was about to give Levophed- she was going to give it IV push, instead of hanging a drip! YIKES! If you haven't given a med before, LOOK IT UP!

[Chloe'sinNYNow]

Originally Posted by P_RN

OH YES latex....... I once broke out so bad on my hands I actually thought I had Kaposi's Sarcoma. I had these big bleebs full of blood all over the backs of my hands. I was off for Christmas day and the day after<-that's a legal holiday in SC..so I called a dermatologist I knew and he opened his office. He took one look and said you are allergic to latex.
Employee health wouldn't accept that and made me have a titre. Off the charts!!! Then the told me I'd have to buy my own gloves. Attorney took care of that.

But what helped more than all this is I ate some guacomole and about anaphylaxed.
Related to latex sources. THEN they believed me when I almost needed tubing.

SO to reiterate BELIEVE your patient if he says he's allergic even if the doc forgot to include it .
[I have latex, betadine, certain narcotic, and avocados on that $40 bracelet.]

Makes me feel so bad for the sweet lil lady who turned terminal once dx'd w/ mets on my Onc unit, and tended to go to alert and confused. Really confused! Staff griped and made fun of her during report for saying in add'n to her many allergies that now cherry jello and eggs were being added to her allergies.

Why is this to be made fun of?

When I asked why this was funny, as the new grad, I was put in my place by stern words and/or cold shoulder snubs.

Does there have to be a near death experience before a pt is believed?

So sad,
Chloe

[rnsrgr8t]

Always double check the compatiblities of your IV fluids and IV meds, especially if you have IVF's with bicarb in them. Bicarb mixed with most things will make them preciptate out. We had patients needing new port a caths and broviacs because their lines precipitated so much they could not recover the line.

Phenergan is a vesicant, always be careful when giving it IV.

Check your connections on your IVF tubing, especially if they are getting chemo. I once had a patient whose chemo (going at solid rate for 24 hours) infused into his bed for about 12 hours b/c no one checked the connection on the extension tubing.

Double check your PCA settings, especially the cartridge that is inserted. We had a mistake one time b/c the pharmacy set up the wrong concentration of the medication. The settings were correct, but for a different concentration of medicine. The nurses checking off on it checked the settings but forgot to check the cartridge.

If you deaccess a portacath, be careful putting it in the sharps container, we had a couple of nurses get a needlesticks this way.

If ya didn't chart it, you didn't do it- period.

If a dose of a med does not seem right, even after you check it, get another pair of eyes to look at it. Even as an APN, if I am writing a script for a drug I have never written for before, I always get my colleagues to quickly check my dosing and they do the same.

[squeakykitty]

Having a CNA pass out meds when it's outside their scope of practice.

[LesMonsterNS]

My original post did not add anything constructive to the thread and was off-topic. My apologies.

[LesMonsterNS]

Originally Posted by Sassy5d

I remember in nursing school.. and I joke about this from time to time....lol

Well some how, some way, she confused CATH CARE with PERI CARE and was cleaning the externals of this poor, poor woman with alcohol swabs..

So for my absolute no no, NEVER perform peri care with alcohol swabs!!!!

Holy moly!!! That must've been excruciating for the patient. Ouch!

[dalesgirl]

Originally Posted by Weeping Willow

This is not always possible in unit dose situations, where only exactly enough pills for a certain time period have been provided by the pharmacist and there is no pharmacist on duty and no way to get a replacement except to borrow from another patient, which is illegal, I think, or call the pharmacist in from home, which could take quite a while. I agree, it would be nice to be able to get a clean pill but I have see too many times where this is just not feasible. I hate unit dose and long for the days when we had stock bottles available for most meds.

Are you kidding? What a horrible situation! Ewwwwwwwwwwww

[payitforward]

You know, I used to start IVs without gloves,(old school) and although I don't do it anymore, I hit them the majority of the time. Of course, we wouldn't dream of doing that today!!!