Forced Resignation - looking for advice

[SailLove80]

I worked in the NICU for about 7 months. I made a medication error where I reviewed an order and administered 4mg/kg q24 of gentamicin when it should have been 4.5mg/kg q36. I read the Neofax wrong. Somehow my vision fell to the lower line which was the >7 days old area. I accept my mistake and learned from it. An incident report was placed regarding this and I was subsequently written up by my department head. Currently I do not have a nurse manager as he resigned suddenly about a month ago.

I met with my unit assistant nurse managers and they were supportive. My department head and educator met with me and told me that maybe the NICU wasn't the place for me.

A few weeks later I made a stupid mistake with a feed. I honestly don't know where my head was at when I made this next error. It should have been a 0.5ml/hr continuous feed but i started it at 5ml/hr. This error has me feeling soooooo low and stupid. Another incident report was put in and my dept head said my option was suspension and one more error and I'm terminated or I could go back to med/surg. As I was mortified by this error and having just had another so close to it, I chose to go back to med/surg. She suspended me anyway and told me that she would work with HR to find a place for me or "worse care scenerio" i could go to reg. nursery/post partum though she would prefer not to train me.

This all happened Wednesday last week. Sunday night I heard from her via text that I would be in reg. nursery Wednesday and Thursday this week. Monday I heard from her again via text that she would like to me to meet with her and HR the following day.

When I met with them, turns out they think I am unfit for acute care and would like me to resign. The feel that by me resigning they would be helping me out so I wouldn't have a termination on my record and I could collect unemployment. According to them I should go to subacute and try to reapply in a year. They tried to get me to write a resignation right then and there. I told them that i already feel like I am being pushed out the door and so I would take care of a resignation on my own this week. Nurses what would you do with this scenario??? After my first meeting after the med error my confidence was completely cut. Then my stupid mistake pretty much left me with none. I'm ready to call it quits on the whole nursing career right now. I tried to get in touch with another woman in HR who had said to me "you're human people make mistakes. there was a nurse in another critical care area who made a mistake that resulted in patient death and she still works here. you are an asset and we will find a place for you" Of course that HR person is out of office till Monday.....

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

My heart goes out to OP and wish best of luck in future employment & quick recovery from the job loss trauma.

However, I want to interject a critical issue about making errors since OP cited a colleague involved in an error that resulted in a patient death, but kept her job. Errors should not be analyzed in terms of the outcomes they cause, but the behavioral choices that were involved. For instance, is it a 'better' error if someone happens to catch it before that wrong blood is transfused as opposed to one that was not caught? Nope - same error.

In the instances OP has cited, both errors appear to involve failure to adhere to the '5 rights' of med administration... whether it was due to time constraints, lack of focus or the full moon, it is the SAME type of error. This would indicate a "pattern of behavior" that could be categorized as either "risky" or "reckless", depending upon the OP's interpretation of the context in which they occurred. In my state, this would trigger an automatic peer review process & (depending on that outcome) potential report to the BON.

Mistakes are an inescapable part of the human condition. If we learn from our mistakes, we are much less likely to repeat them in the future.

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

Submit your resignation letter , immediately.

and it's not necessarily true that if you resign , that you cannot unemployment, you CAN if you need to ... there is like a week or two waiting period if you voluntarily resign...

chin up princess, it's early and you have many many more shifts if stellar nursing care to give !!!

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

I've personally collected unemployment compensation after having resigned from two different positions. During both instances, the unemployment department determined that I was forced to resign and exhausted my options.

Yup, true. I have as well , after voluntarily resigning...

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

I'm so sorry about all of this, but seriously... can't the managers , HR people and whoever else involved making these decisions COLLABORATE on what they

are going to decide ???!!!

[caliotter3]

Curious as to what happened to the OP almost three years ago and how they are doing now.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Submit your resignation letter , immediately.

Since the original poster started this thread in 2014, it is safe to conjecture that (s)he either resigned or had her employment involuntarily terminated many moons ago.