Re: First Medication Error.....feeling horrible!!
It happens. Hey, you figured it out quickly, reported it, and notified the physician. The patient will be fine. Go easy on yourself.
I did a very similar thing when I was floated to a tele floor from ICU a couple of years ago. I got so caught up in going to the bedside with the stupid paper MAR that I gave a dose of glucotrol that wasn't due. Same deal - caught it quickly, called the doc, hung D5 and monitored the pt. Reported it to the med error hotline, feeling like a big loser the whole time. I mean, I'd been a nurse for 18, 19 years and you'd think I could avoid an obvious error like that. It was humbling, to say the least.
The patient, incidentally, was fine.
The takehome from this? Any nurse, competent or incompetent, can make a med error. The competent ones, however, do just what you did - they recognize it, report it, and make sure the patient is OK. They also learn from it, all of which you've done.
Extend a little grace to yourself. You acted in the best interest of your patient, not yourself, and in so doing, showed professionalism as a nurse.
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