Almost had a coronary..

Nurses Recovery

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Specializes in u name it.

OMG..my first week on my new job and my first day of having my own patient to care for.. after 3 years of fighting with the BON, thousands of dollars spent, a trip through Hell and back, and a board order to allow me to work with stips for a year (my stips are different than most in that I must give narcotics in my job as part of my agreed order)..I had to give my first narcotic. I was like.."OK girl..you have a firm grip on your recovery..you do not want to use..you are fine." I punched in my ID into the pyxis, counted the narcs, withdrew my patient's dose, and logged out..and BOOM..the pixus said it had a discrepancy!!! :redlight::eek::redlight: I almost peed my pants..I called my preceptor in and showed her what had happened.. and it was an honest mistake..those little sealed bags that have a note on them saying "10" well..there were only 9 narcs in one of the bags. It took me an hour to quit shaking.

I finally went in to my bosses office..(she knows my whole story) and said..I don't know if I can do this..I am so afraid of something coming up missing and being accused of it. She said to take a deep breath and remember, I am the most closely monitored nurse she has and discrepancies happen all the time and are easily corrected. She told me she would not have hired me if she was not very comfortable with my recovery and gave me a big heartfelt hug. :hug:

Lesson learned..do not trust the little sealed bags to have the correct number of narcs in them. Count each and every one of them. Thank God for recovery. :heartbeat:nurse::heartbeat

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

In Australia we must count all and every narcotic with another RN and sign for them. We cannot give out 'bags', and don't have bags of narcs.

Get into the good practice of counting all your narcs individually - it will stand you well in the future.

Good luck with ur future endeavours.

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Specializes in u name it.

Point well taken..Do ya'll in Australia have Pyxis type machines that dispense narcotics with a password..or are they in a locked cabinet?

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

Good job, and congratulations. You really can do this.

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Specializes in u name it.

Thank you OCNRN63..I am sure gonna give it all I have. So grateful to be working again.

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Everyone deserves a second chance. Good luck to you! You can do this!

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Specializes in u name it.

What a very kind thing to say..thank you Kenyanese...I am going to give it my all.

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Specializes in adult health , critical care.

Dear backtowork , I am so proud of you!:yelclap: Im sending you big hugs across the miles!! Yeah YOU are doing it!! You have a strong recovery and it shows because your supervisor has alot of faith in you and she /he BELIEVES in your abilities as a nurse and a human being and so must you! I can only imagine how that felt to be in that position with the missing narcs, but you did it and got thru it!!:bow:

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Specializes in u name it.

Thank you JMO..you have been here with me from the beginning of my posts..sending good warm hugs to you too. Your turn next!!! :hug:

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Specializes in Medical.

Not at my hospital, Carol - after a qualifying period, testing, journalling, supervision and an annual competency, RN's can single check almost anything, including narcotics. There's a lot of research demonstrating that people are safer single-checking, because there's an assumption when double-checking that the other person is taking a portion of the responsibility. Bank nurses who meet hospital criteria for single-checking may only single-check on a ward if the NUM signs off on it.

Congratulations, backtowork - I know this can't have been easy, and you're to be applauded. And how wonderful that your NUM's so supportive :) Although many private hospitals use Pyxis, my (public) hospital stores schedule 11 medications (dangerous drugs/narcotics) in a keypad safe in a swipecard access drug room. The balance is checked between every shift, with one outgoing and one incoming nurse, written in a log that's stored for seven years (and regularly audited), and discrepancies are RiskManned. In over 19 years of registration I've found maybe ten discrepancies and haven't worked with any nurses who I am aware diverted. I know that this doesn't at all mean none did, but I've been at the same hospital a loong time, and so far only heard about half a dozen cases (and I'm a union rep).

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Specializes in u name it.

Wow I had know idea how much different hospital varied on narcotics counts/checks.. thank you for the insight and the congrats.

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Specializes in Medical.

You're welcome to the first, and you've earned the second :)

I think the DD recording's fairly standard, at least across Victoria, as the log books aren't hospital specific. I do know that not everywhere is as rigrous as we are, because I heard about a ward a few years ago where a discrepancy was found and the drugs hadn't been checked for three or four shifts, making tracking down when the narcotics went missing impossible.

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