Dangerous nurses

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Have any of you ever worked with a nurse you would classify as dangerous ---- dangerous as a nurse and as a person?

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

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Specializes in telemetry, med-surg, home health, psych.
This is a very frightening post,we all know some nurse out there who is dangerous...how many of them are there ?

Hopefully, a very small percentage now.....BUT as the economy worsens and there is a rush for everyone to go to nursing school, I am afraid we will have so many people that are in it for the $$ only and are NOT caring and compassionate and there will be more and more dangerous nurses out there.... JMO

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Specializes in ER - trauma/cardiac/burns. IV start spec.
Hopefully, a very small percentage now.....BUT as the economy worsens and there is a rush for everyone to go to nursing school, I am afraid we will have so many people that are in it for the $$ only and are NOT caring and compassionate and there will be more and more dangerous nurses out there.... JMO
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Here is my :twocents: worth:

Here we have a nursing program. It is a ASN with rapid track to MSN. The first quarter the instructors try to wash out as many people as they can because if you wash out learning to change a bed and basic A&P :uhoh21:you are not going to get any better. But that is nothing compared to the first round of clinicals:angryfire. I saw 25 of the group washout in first clinicals, and we continued to lose until graduation, we started with 101 and 35 graduated.

I know there will be a rush to the medical field, after all it is 1 or 2 jobs that have built in job security, but most with be washed out and the ones that get through - well perhaps we (as nurses) can keep their damage to a minimum.

As for the nurse with angina at the rate she is going her cardiologist may put an end to her career - my Internal Med Md did that to my driving privileges:banghead:

**********Remember Eat Right, Exercise,..........die anyway!!!!!!!!:yeah:

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working with a few now

-One was ready to give a pt potassium rapid IVP

one who did not know how to calculate the dosage of an abx then did not know how to prepare it then said "forget I will just give it IVPdiluted with 2.1 cc NS"

-One who allowed a patients BP to reman at 60 systolic for 5 hours without increasing the dopamine or adding any vasopressors

-One who was ready to give an infant augmentin when the order was for amoxil ( they had an allergy to all "cillins" )when questioned about the allergy the nurse said she is only allergic to the cillins"

-Gave versed to a pt without concious sedation proticol because she said it wasn't really conscious sedation because it was only a small dose of versed.

-Was giving NS with 40 meq potassium Rapidly and free flowing.

Instead of giving 500cc IV bolus over 1 hour to a dehydrated elderly pt with a hx of CHF pt gave the pt 500cc/hr and put her into CHF when asked why she was giving it at 500cc/hr she said it was ordered that way when told it was ordered as a one time bolus she said "that is what I did' (she is an ICU float nurse)

I unfortunatley could go on and on these are not new nurses just new employees

charge nurse informed in all of these also spoke with unit manager on several but nothing done as NO MED ERROR (yea because I was ever vigilant)

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Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

I also believe that it is our duty to report unsafe nursing care to the board. I give management a chance to clean it up but if they don't i report it directly to the board.

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Specializes in LTC, case mgmt, agency.
working with a few now

-One was ready to give a pt potassium rapid IVP

one who did not know how to calculate the dosage of an abx then did not know how to prepare it then said "forget I will just give it IVPdiluted with 2.1 cc NS"

-One who allowed a patients BP to reman at 60 systolic for 5 hours without increasing the dopamine or adding any vasopressors

-One who was ready to give an infant augmentin when the order was for amoxil ( they had an allergy to all "cillins" )when questioned about the allergy the nurse said she is only allergic to the cillins"

-Gave versed to a pt without concious sedation proticol because she said it wasn't really conscious sedation because it was only a small dose of versed.

-Was giving NS with 40 meq potassium Rapidly and free flowing.

Instead of giving 500cc IV bolus over 1 hour to a dehydrated elderly pt with a hx of CHF pt gave the pt 500cc/hr and put her into CHF when asked why she was giving it at 500cc/hr she said it was ordered that way when told it was ordered as a one time bolus she said "that is what I did' (she is an ICU float nurse)

I unfortunatley could go on and on these are not new nurses just new employees

charge nurse informed in all of these also spoke with unit manager on several but nothing done as NO MED ERROR (yea because I was ever vigilant)

:no: Wow. This thread keeps getting scarier.

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Specializes in PACU, ED.

JessicaRN, thank you for your vigilance. At my hospital we report errors and near misses with computerized incident reports. Those go to risk management and sometimes they will put pressure on management.

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Specializes in Pyschiatry/Behavioral (Inpatient).

How about the "I killed my patient" thread that a new grad posted on here a few months ago?

You want scary... I read some legal briefings. One case: a RN gave an antibiotic intrathecal instead of intravenous. The patient had seizures and died. Lame.

Most places have epidural tubing color coded plus it looks nothing like IV tubing... I don't see how it could happen but apparently it did.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

which thread was that?

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Specializes in Pyschiatry/Behavioral (Inpatient).

I don't even know if it's still on here. They posted a bunch of incriminating stuff at first and the mods got on, edited their post, and everyone just said "Oh my god... you need to talk with someone.... now...."

It was pretty messed up. They supposidly gave their patient a drug they were allergic to and they died. I don't know what happened to them after that.

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Specializes in Education and oncology.

The problem is that preventable errors are STILL occurring. This month's Onc Nursing Society journal has an article on vincristine (vesicant IV chemo) drug is STILL being given intrathecally. The pts die. All of them. Slowly and painfully- over days, knowing they are going to die.

I tell my students- "You see that warning label? There's a reason- a mistake was made." When did you last hang a bottle of enteral feeds? Did you notice there's a red slash and it says "not for IV use"? Because someone gave it IV. We are trusted with our patients' lives and we owe it to them to not be the "dangerous nurse."

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