Okay, quick vent warning here; also would like some other people's insight on this situation. At work, I have had a few incidents with one nurse where I feel like a complete failure. First time was on a post op patient where the patient was supposed to have Q 1 hour pulse checks and groin checks. I was very consistent on doing these checks throughout the shift. The pt had some oozing from the groin site towards the beginning of my shift and a new pressure dressing was applied. It was uneventful all shift. Then at shift change, right before I left, I found out that the groin had been bleeding, not sure for how long, but enough to form a clot and saturate through some things. I had done the last groin check an hour before finding this bleeding.
Anyway, the nurse I gave report to asked when was the last groin check, etc etc, but her tone of voice was condescending and made me sound like I hadn't been doing my job, which was embarrassing in front of this alert and oriented patient (who stuck up for me btw). I will admit that I did feel somewhat at fault for not noticing the blood was coming out the top of the dressing instead of the bottom, like you would expect gravity to pull it down, so it could have been oozing for some time without me immediately noticing, but I DID do the hourly checks and also this was a pt who was moving around and coughing quite a bit, so it is hard to say for sure when the oozing started up again.
Point being after all that, I really felt terrible and just the way she acted towards me made me feel like I really did something wrong. I cried for the first time on the way home.
Then not shortly after, I had another incident where I didn't do something on my shift. I actually had a tech helping out and specifically asked the tech if she did the labs for the morning and was told yes. Got completely slammed at the end of the shift and didn't check to make sure it was done; I had seen the tech doing labs on other pts, and this is a tech that has been there for a long time, so I trusted that it was done. Well, when the doc came at 0700, come to find out it wasn't done. So when giving report and the oncoming nurse found out the labs weren't done (same nurse as the bleeding incident), she says in a very sharp tone "A biochem panel for a renal patient? Uh yea, that's really important". Of course I know it's important, of course I knew that it was supposed to be done, I was honest in telling you that I thought it was done and it wasn't. Really, its going to be 2 hours late, I admit to having a rough shift and I know there are a few things that weren't done that otherwise would have been done.
I don't know how to take this. I guess the harder part of this is that we are close in age and experience level; granted she has been a nurse for longer than me but I'm almost feeling like a complete idiot in both of these situations, because of the way she talks to me about it. I know for a fact there are other nurses I work with that could say in a different way that such and such should have been done on your shift, its important, or whatever, but I just don't get that from her. If nothing else, I will learn from these mistakes, no doubt about that, so if nothing else I can take something away from it, but if this keeps up I will really start to dread giving report to her.
I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on this. Is this something I should brush off? Any better way to handle this? The other sad part of this is that our unit is tight knit and a lot of people hang out outside of work. This can get awkward
