Admitting you are wrong

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

I am a educator and quality assurance person for my company, I work with a large amount of staff covering 17 facilities. This means I am the 'expert' and the go to person for policies and procedures.

It is impossible to know every P & P off the top of your head, most times you have a general idea but often I have to refer to the P&P link on the intranet!

Last week I firmly stated a P&P to a staff member who questioned it! I encourage everybody to challenge me because I am not perfect, so I rushed off to the intranet pulled up the P & P and found to my horror that I was wrong and the other staff member was correct. I have to say this is a rare occurrence for me as I am a stickler for accuracy.

So with cap in hand I informed the staff member who laughed hard, made sure i announced i was wrong to everybody who was working and then proceeded to mark the calendar with the date I was wrong!

The morale of the story is question anybody in nursing if you think they are providing incorrect information! The morale of my story is to check P & P before opening my mouth!!!!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

I will always admit when I am wrong....which I did recently on a math question here, how embarrassing :bag:. I think it is important to admit when you are wrong as it shows you are human and establishes trust.

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Man I hate admitting when I'm wrong which is silly I know. Something about striving to be perfect I guess.

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Specializes in ICU.

Yeah, some people can just never admit when they're wrong...luckily, I'm always right, so I don't have that problem! ?

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Yeah, some people can just never admit when they're wrong...luckily, I'm always right, so I don't have that problem! 

me too, hope we never disagree I'd hate to see you be wrong for the first time ;-)

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@Madwife2002, I like that. I have no problem apologizing when I am wrong- it makes for better relationships. My work involves making some clear-cut decisions, which everyone has to live by. So I try to be doubly sure when I say stuff because they'd have a huge implication. And any time someone raises a question on new issues, I pedal slowly because hey, no one knows it all. Plus I don't want to have to eat my words.LOL

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me too, hope we never disagree I'd hate to see you be wrong for the first time ;-)

Awesome!:)

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Lol

I will fight for a bit before admitting I am wrong, but when the evidence proves I am wrong I wave the white flag.

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I never have to admit I am wrong. There are legions of people willing and eager to do it for me.

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Given the responses (while many are sarcastic) to this particular thread, I find it funny and perhaps a bit ironic that this thread and Madwife's "Top Ten Reasons for being Fired: Falsification of Documentation" are active at the same time!

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Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.
Given the responses (while many are sarcastic) to this particular thread, I find it funny and perhaps a bit ironic that this thread and Madwife's "Top Ten Reasons for being Fired: Falsification of Documentation" are active at the same time!

I know it is too funny but hey we are all human and sometimes we talk before we think!

To be truthful I was convinced I was right! We even had a great discussion about how I was right and everybody was wrong LOL

Plus I discovered what i believed to be the error whilst auditing their documentation!!!

HUMBLE PIE!

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Specializes in Family practice, emergency.

How humbling and human! But it sounds like you handled it like a pro. It is awesome when you have educators and clinicians with a sense of humor!

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