Beating myself up - anyone else?

chachh, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2006

I beat myself up all the time!!!

I made an IV fluid mistake for the first time the other night. And I always double check those!!! Even triple check!!!! We have scanners at our hospital but unfortunately the scanners can't do IV fluids unless they have an additive like potassium. I thought I hung LR, but dayshift said I hung LR with D5!!!! I felt awful!!! Plus the pt was a diabetic!!!!!! But her bld sugars were all in range thank the good Lord!! Now I will be quadruple checking my IV fluids! Just another thing to be paranoid about.

Letting go though. Pt is alright and I learned a lesson!!! I hope that is as bad as it will get, but I am paranoid enough to keep a close watch out!

MMARN, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2006

Meds get missed sometimes. It happens. Do you feel bad about it? Sure. But it does happen. I used to spend my whole drive home and then lay in bed going back thru the night wondering if I missed anything. I've even called back to work to check and see if I didn't do something. Every time it was done. I would get myself so worked up that I was making myself crazy. Now I can pretty much leave work at work. It's not that I don't care, it's that I'm more confident and relaxed about it now. It takes time.

I am the type of person who beats herself up whenever I make a small mistake. However, things happen. We're human and we can try to do our best, and most of the time, we will, but there will be times that it just won't happen. Nobody's perfect. Like HeatherLPN said, you gotta leave work at work. Otherwise, you will go crazy. Try to adapt a laid-back attitude. It has helped me. I try to always see things with a silver lining. Obviously, you have to worry about what you do, I mean, we're dealing with people's lives here, but mistakes are mistakes. Nothing malicious about them. Just make sure you check 10 times if you have to; just enough to give you peace of mind. You'll be OK. Good luck and God bless you.

Mave.

greatshakes · Feb 8, 2006

Hi all

What is a MARS like? I am so used to seeing patients with individual medication charts by their beds that I can't imagine a sheet, if that's what it's like with everybody's medication on it. Just like someone before wrote in when I was a student with more patients I seemed more successful than as a new RN with lesser patients. Maybe it's the additional responsibility,

Hassled

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 8, 2006

hi everyone,
anyway, has anyone else made their "first mistake" yet? did anyone else think in the back of their head that they wouldn't make any mistakes (even though you know logically that it will happen)? did you let that "perfectionist" standard go? how do you leave a mess up behind and keep doing the excellent nursing that you know you can do???

i'm not a newbie, but i thought i'd put in my two cents anyway.

everyone makes mistakes. everyone. let me rephrase that. no one is perfect. everyone makes mistakes. it amazes me, sometimes, the medical mistakes that patients can and do survive! i've seen, participated in and instigated some whoppers.

the biggest difference between a mistake and a fatal mistake is the nurse that can recognize and admit her mistake so that steps can be taken to deal with it. you seem to be that sort of nurse already. congratulations! i'll work with you any time. it's the nurse who "never makes a mistake" i don't want on my team, because (since nobody is perfect) that means a nurse who either doesn't recognize or won't admit to a mistake. if you don't admit that you pushed the whole amp of epi rather than the 1cc that was ordered, that you gave 10 mg. of dilaudid rather than of demoral, that you forgot to check a blood sugar before giving the insulin, that you hung a heparin drip instead of the lidocaine, the narcan can't be ordered, the d50 won't be given -- you see?

admit your error, do your best to rectify it or monitor and treat complications, then let it go. you're human.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 8, 2006

As you said, you were humbled.

We all come out of nursing school hearing "everyone of you is going to make a mistake". And of course we think "not me, I'm going to be the exception because I'm going to be careful".

Then when we do something human, we just die a little bit inside and are humbled to the core. It's something we all go through.

skittlebear · Feb 10, 2006

Just remember...everyone makes mistakes. Your human and you are definitely going to make mistakes as a new nurse. Don't beat yourself up over it. Take every mistake you make as a learning experience

pickle11 · Apr 23, 2006

This last week at work for me has been the worst in my history of nursing. One medication error and a major incident that hasn't been sorted out as yet as far as i know, i have been on days off since. Both of these shifts were busy, not that this is an excuse, but it just shows you that you can never and i repeat never let your guard down. I have been nursing for many years as an EN and have recently graduated as an RN, but at this point in time i am on the verge of resigning and finding a new career.

wonderbee, BSN, RN · Apr 23, 2006

I'm trying not to beat myself up when I fail to perform to perfect standards. The job itself beats us up and occasionally there's another nurse or two who likes to throw a below-the-belt punch. Even the patients take a proverbial swing now and then too. No. If I'm in this thing for the long haul, I'm going to need my self-integrity. It does no good to my patients and no good to me. I know I will make mistakes, take responsibility for them and learn from them. But beating myself up? Gosh, I hope not.

greatshakes · Apr 23, 2006

Hi all

Even though I am finally an RN, Iwant to ask you all about something that happened as a student. I made a med error and gave the wrong oral antibiotic to a patient and was suspended from clinical. My preceptor had to go and get the DD keys as the patient also wanted something for pain. At all times I had the chart. When I was hauled over the coals later, the preceptor told the person in charge she had the chart. I said "No, because I was going to bring it into you after you got the drug keys and I wouldn't have given anything without it because it's not legal" . I had told the patient not to take the tablets (antibiotic and panadol) until I had had them checked by preceptor and put them on bedside table. I took the med chart while I looked for preceptor and in that time the patient had taken the tablets prior to them being checked. When the preceptor bought out the medication from the treatment room, the tablets were gone, so I pointed to the box I had taken it from and was told it was the wrong one. I felt terrible, apologised to the patient and said " I am very sorry and I will need to fill out an incident report" to preceptor. This preceptor on her report about me said that I was not duly concerned about the incident. Nothing bad happened to the patient but I still feel that I was done over, so to speak. I made the mistake though and the responsibility rests on my shoulders. The incident report of which I was given a copy, really made me out to be very negligent but I knew I had that chart in my possession at all times. Was she just covering herself as she should really have had that chart in person when she took out the meds from the DD cupboard so she and her other RN could check the order and dosage?

PANurseRN1 · Apr 24, 2006

I stopped at the point where you left the meds at the pt. bedside to go get your instructor. I'm sure you know that's a big "no-no." So you actually made two errors: wrong med, then leaving med unattended.

I'm not saying this to be unkind, but it does sort of seem from your post that you didn't appreciate how serious this was. But you're a licensed nurse now, so just let it go; learn and move on.

We all make mistakes; Lord knows I've made my share.

tjsmom123 · Apr 25, 2006

Just some advice- Never leave a med or meds with your pt. unless you are absolutely positive that the meds have been checked, checked, and checked. Even if you tell them not to take it til you return, remember, the pt. is ill, may not have heard you, or just doesn't know the consequences. As for that nurse that was with you, sounds like she was covering her butt. There's another lesson there that many nurses have told me time and time again while I was a student in clinicals- COVER YOUR BUTT. Personally, though, i take that to mean something like "chart everything", not lie on your co worker. I think we need to help each other out. If the nurse would have admitted to her part in the mistake, then maybe they would not have been so hard on you. Who Knows? Anyways, i went thru something similar to your situation in nursing school. It was sort of an ethical problem. But i learned alot from it, and that is all you can do when something like that happens. Don't beat yourself up. I am sure you are a great nurse!!:wink2: