for whos benefit?

I try not to write any fellow nurse up--even if they made a med error. Last week, I found the wrong IV fluid hanging and it had been up since 6pm and I was making my rounds at midnight when I found this. The next night, while on my rounds, I found that an 1800 dose of IV med was not infused because the tubing was still clamped on the piggyback.

I was told by several older nurses that if you start writing people up then people will, in turn write you up. Our hospital has a policy that if you make three med errors in a 6 month period then you will be counseled..after that if you make another med error then they make you take some kind of class.

I find that most med errors are made due to haste. I'll be willing to bet that the RN who hung the wrong IV solution, grabbed the IV solution out of our supply pyxis and thinking that it was the correct solution hung it up. I have found the incorrect IV solution in the wrong "slot" in the Pyxis machine many times. She should have checked it before she hung it up, sure but, in a rush, probably forgot.

I am not perfect. There is probably not ONE nurse who can say that she or he has NEVER made a med error. Luckily for me. my mistakes have not harmed the patient.

I try to use the "five rights' each and every time that I give a drug but when you have 6 patients to care for(eight now that I am on night shift), you sometimes forget.

I blame part of the problem on the system that our hospital uses. We use a computer generated MAR. We write orders on a Kardex and compare the kardexes with the MAR. Sometimes a nurse will cross out the times on the computer MAR and re-time things. This has caused a few med errors.

Unless it is a serious, serious error, I won't write a fellow nurse up and will leave her or him a note. I have had the same courtesy extended to me