Accepting verbal orders from another nurse?

[amberrenae, RN]

I'm a new RN a little over a month into my orientation on a busy med/surg unit. Tonight at a few minutes before the end of my shift I had finished reporting off and was sitting at the nurses station when a float pool nurse I had never worked with before asked me to push morphine for her patient. She had just started giving report and was trying to avoid overtime. I brought the morphine into the room but wasn't able to scan it because the patient didn't have an order for it in the eMAR. I returned to the nurse and told her the morphine wasn't ordered, and she said she had taken a verbal order and I should enter the order. I said I didn't feel comfortable entering orders I hadn't taken for a patient I didn't know, and she said I could just push the morphine without scanning it and she would enter the orders and document administration when she finished report. I hesitated again, and she snatched the morphine from my hand and stormed off to give it herself.

Am I in the wrong here? I don't want to be seen as not being a team player and I'm sure things like this happen, but I also don't want to risk the license I just earned.

[kurisuchine08]

First, verbal orders for me are reserved for life threatening, emergency situations. If no one's going to die in the next five minutes, I believe there's enough time to enter the order for everyone's protection. May I also suggest that you review your hospital's policy on verbal orders so the next time someone asks you to do such things again, you can refer them back to the policy.

Second, never give any meds you didn't prepare let alone administer them to patients you know nothing about. Never put yourself in a situation where the patient's safety is compromised just because the other nurse wants to go finish the handover and leave. It's your license and the patient's life on the line.

[Nunya, BSN]

Good everything worked out well for you, so easily could have gone the other way. Good lesson learned, trust me, it won't be the last one! You're doing great, welcome to The Team!

[Steffy44]

Nope. You did the right thing. It's one thing to give a med for a nurse when it's in the system. No way I'm going to enter an order and give a narc with NO information.

[Dragonnurse1, ASN, RN]

Never pull a narcotic without a written order.

Never take a "verbal order" second-hand

Never push a medication someone else has drawn up in a syringe.

And never let someone else waste leftover narcotics you pulled.

Simple rules to go by. Simple rules to keep your license safe.

[LadysSolo]

You did the right thing. It would be one thing (but still risky) if you had a longstanding relationship with a coworker and totally trusted her. But you're new and still proving yourself and she's not regularly on your unit and you didn't know her from Adam. Way too many red flags and I wouldn't have touched that with a barge pole.

Bringing her patient a beverage or an extra blanket? Sure. Administering morphine without an order? No.

I agree - if it was someone I had worked with every day for several years and I knew them well and trusted their judgment, then probably (and because we usually knew quite a bit about each other's patients.) Someone I had never worked with before - no way! You were totally correct.

[KKEGS, MSN, RN]

You did exactly the right thing. One should never give a med---especially a narcotic, and especially if it's not her/his patient---without seeing the order in the patient's MAR. I wouldn't have given it either, certainly not on another nurse's word that she'd taken a verbal order. The other nurse was out of line. Good for you!

Absolutely spot on! You cannot do the 6 rights of med administration with no order. No order, no med. OP, you did the right thing.

[djh123]

You did the right thing. This person can go sit in a fire ant pile for being so unreasonable.

Tied down? With a lil' honey or syrup dribbled too? 😄

[Nursekck]

You did absolutely nothing wrong. What you did was absolutely 100% right. You didn't receive the order so you therefore would not be able to put it in the system. That nurse should be ashamed... Definitely the potential for some serious safety issues. I would have probably talked to my boss about it and filed an incident report. What that nurse asked of you was not only dangerous, but also wrong and they need to be educated about their unsafe behavior.

[Wannabenurseneko]

Seems to me like someone is trying to make you the fall person , if they mess up .

[bgxyrnf, MSN, RN]

I stopped reading after the first 12 posts but to summarize for the OP:

1) You cannot legally or ethically take a 2nd degree verbal order through another nurse. Part of taking a verbal order is reading it back to the provider to ensure that no error occurs. You were right to refuse.

2) Even with an existing order, I'd be hesitant to lay hands on a narc pulled by another nurse unless it was someone with whom I had an established, trusting relationship with.

These days, with all the focus on narcs, I'd be very cautious about getting between the dispenser and the patient and I'd be quite cautious about verbal orders for narcs. Outside of a seizure or moderate sedation or the drama of the trauma bay, it's hard to imagine an "emergent" narc.

[Tenebrae, BSN, RN]

I would never take verbal orders from another nurse.

I'm choosy about which doctors i would take a verbal order from

[Chazzie_Made_It, ADN]

You did the right thing! I wouldn't have done it either.