"Fired for NO Reason"

We had a new grad on one of our tele floors quit recently "Before this place makes me lose my license." Okay, there are some places that are that bad. But our facility is not one of them.

In ONE WEEK, she managed to:
Give meds to the wrong patient on at least three different ocassions
Leave blood transfusing as the patient spiked a temp from 97.8 to 102.2
Attempt to start an IV into a dialysis fistula (and then insist that "once they don't work anymore, they need to take them out somehow so we can use those veins")
Not recognize sustained V-tach; then, when it was pointed out to her, had no idea what to do about it, didn't even go to check on the patient
Left a femoral sheath open so that the patient bled all over the freaking place
Draw a PTT on a pt on a heparin gtt from the IV access that the heparin was infusing into, thus destroying the access on an impossible stick and getting a PTT result of >200, so she shut off the gtt (this was on a patient with new positive Troponin I's)
Push undiluted Lopressor over about five seconds on the above patient, without checking the BP/HR first, resulting in a drastic and sudden bradycardia into the 20's

Sure, it's our facility's fault that you got your license out of a Cracker Jack box. Seriously, I have little patience for nurses who fall into this category...she knew it all, and would yell at you if you tried to help her, then disappear as you fixed the screw ups she caused.

So I know exactly what Ruby is talking about. There are many sad points to this... One, she should have been let go. I'm sorry, I may get flamed for this, but the learning curve in nursing is steep for a reason; people's lives are in our hands. If you can't hack it after a reasonable amount of time, you should be out. Two, her lack of skills and knowledge placed an unfair burden on the rest of us. Three, she'll probably never figure out just why she didn't succeed, since nothing is ever her fault, and she'll be dealing with traipsing from job to job until she does lose her license...that can't be a fun life. And most importantly, how many people will she seriously harm or even kill before it gets to that point?

I can look back and see some pretty stupid stuff that I've done over the years, but never anything of that caliber.

It is hard when you're faced with criticism, I'll allow that. I had a HORRIBLE yearly eval a few years ago. Prior to that one, I had always gotten "exceeds expectations". That year, I barely scored high enough to get my raise. I went home, fumed, cursed, cried, and yelled about it. The next shift I worked, I pulled a few of the people whose opinions I trust aside, told them that I had some questions that I wanted honest answers to, and showed them my eval. Mostly, the response that I got was "What did you do to tick her off so much?". But there were a few areas that I thought I was doing fine in that my co-workers told me I was doing adequately, but could do better. At first I was a little hurt, but after a few days of reflection I realized that maybe I could improve. It took a level of maturity that I don't think I had when I was 22 and a new grad.

To those who would say that this poster's former co-worker needs "better preceptorship/instruction/nurturing/supervision/guidance/remediation" or whatever- I say "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

Amen. I'm getting sick of hearing "Oh, they need better supervision,remediation"...If someone needs to be remediated THREE TIMES for giving meds to the wrong patient THREE TIMES, sorry, no more remediation, it's time to go..After they kill someone, are people gonna keep making excuses for these peoples' incompetence? Honestly, how many times do you have to say STOP GIVING MEDS TO THE WRONG PATIENT.:b anghead:

Gees, its basic nursing 101, when you give meds to the patient, you make sure before giving the meds, you go through the five rights. Is it really that hard?

I understand what it's like being nervous going through orientation. But that does not excuse a nurse from making medication errors. Why didn't she make check the patient's wristband to the MAR before giving meds? I find it inexcusable. I've given meds to the wrong patient once and I was scared silly when I realized what I had done. I was busy and didn't check the MAR to the patient's wristband. I owned up to my mistake, called the doc, and filled out an incident report. But giving meds to the wrong patient three times?? Three times?