Demerol 75 mg was given IV instead of IM. Fired!!!
Is it a misconduct? I was terminated and denied unemployment insurance.
Patient was not harmed. I started practicing under my RN license of Oklahoma 7 month ago. This was my first nursing job and I relocated for it (paid my relocation twice) from Texas to OK and back, when lost the job. The real reason for termination was a snow storm and I could not drive to work from the place I lived. I called the emergency truck to pick me up. My manager was furious and called me to her office few times for another reason. I was so fearful that she is going to fire me and I made an error. The time I found about it was next day in Human Resources, when I was fired. No variance report, no calling doctor for back IV order, no disciplinary, just simply terminated for misconduct.
Word MISCONDUCT bothering me. This is just a human error, which happens every day in hospitals!!! This was a personal issue not a misconduct. So, I filed the appeal for hearing with employer. At least my OK license is still displayed current online.
It is so hard to find an employment with only 7 months of experience! I believe that my 7 months of hard work 84 hours per pay period allow me to be qualified for unemployment insurance. I am just a human who wants to work, I am not asking for welfare.
Please, advise me what to do. If anyone was in similar situation. Thank you!
Easy for you to say. You aren't the one being called sickening and "not learning from your mistakes". It just doesn't sit right with me and I won't let it pass without defending myself.
I'm at work and couldn't read all the responses but - WOW- this is supposed to be a supportive forum. There is a lot we don't know about the circumstances- Is demerol normaly given IV on her unit and the IM was an unusual order?, was the patient in sufficient pain that that dose would be appropriate and safe by age and size?, Is there any other history of med errors or lapses in clinical judgement?. Getting fired for one med error that didn't result in patient harm seems a bit severe. Yes- this could have easily have been a serious error, but the poster was asking for support for being dismissed from a position that she went to a great deal of trouble to get. I would expect an employer to place the nurse under some sort of narcotic restriction, or to take a medication safety review course AT MOST. Especialy if this was the first serious lapse.
Remember the 5 R's. Double check. Ask other nurses to check your meds with you. Yes, you are human and you made a med error. I am not sure firing you was the way to go. Could be your manager just did not like you. It happens a lot and most likely we can not do anything about it.
I am sorry this happened. I have heard similiar stories here in the state I live in.
Word to the wise. Just double check everything ...constantly. If you feel any sort of doubt. Stop. Go call a senior nurse, the pharmacist, or the med book.
I think firing is a little harsh. Usually if this is not a common thing for someone they teach you. Good luck. Lesson definitely well learned.
Errare humanum est - except for nurses. Doctors, and especially interns and residents, can get away with horrendous mistakes - they have M & M conferences, where serious errors and pt deaths are reviewed - but these are treated as learning opportunities and the responsible MDs are typically not fired.
Only in nursing would someone get fired for making a med error that does not even result in pt harm! And we all know, some people are always more equal than others (don't know what I mean? A friend of mine works in a hospital which has "zero tolerance" for lab errors, e.g. putting the wrong pt labels on the tubes. But one nurse, good friend of the boss, made such an error - and did not even get written up for it! Someone else would have been suspended and/or fired.)
But to get back to the OP's post. It became clear to me from her OP that she is not a native English speaker; therefore, it's not surprising she would have missed some of the sarcasm directed at her (which is probably a good thing). I do not get the impression that she is minimizing her med error, but instead asking why she was denied unemployment for misconduct. Actually a good question; why was she even fired for a one time occurrence without pt harm? Do we know she showed no remorse or did not own up to her mistake? Her language problem may have been a factor here, perhaps. (OK, we don't know her entire employment record, etc. But I'm just referring to this one med error). But be that as it may.
I don't get the impression that OP wants her job back or thinks she was unjustly fired. Instead, she questions why she would be denied unemployment. I know that many civilized counties have far more lenient unemployment insurance than the U.S. does. In one European country I'm familiar with workers can get unemployment even if they were fired for cause (i.e., misconduct) and even if they were not even fired but quit (in this case, they get unemployment after 3 months). So I don't think OP's question was so far-fetched.
Finally, don't forget that someone who just got canned is probably not in the best frame of mind. In fact, they probably feel pretty lousy, no matter what the circumstances. So maybe they're not as careful about properly wording their posts (e.g., to show their awareness of the seriousness of their error) as they otherwise would be.
OP, learn from this and move on. I wish you luck!
DeLana
P.S. Let those of us who have never made a med error (that we probably could have been fired for) throw the first stone.
Nurse 156, I hope you didn't think I was shaming the poster; I wasn't. Thanks for your words of support and your perspective is the same as mine. I was trying to convey that there should be a little solidarity on this forum to encourage new nurses who have made a mistake to do and be the best they can be in the future.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Nope-- I think you were standing up for the poster. While we might disagree about details here and there and long as we're polite (and I know I can get snippy at times) it's better to have a mix of opinions.
I would hope that a culture of 1 strike and you're out will not happen in nursing- everybody has made an error at one time or another.
Just recently I caught myself just in time at my homecare patient's picked up the wrong pill-- why? Ironically it was because I had let my vigilance drop - it made me realize that (and I've seen it happen here, too) that a nurse with 25 years of experience will shock herself by making an error but it stands to reason your brain has a tendency to go on auto-pilot with a task that has been performed thousands of times over and over.
I agree with the people who have said a person who has developed a pattern of errors needs serious remedial measures, but that is not the type of nurse we're talking about most of the time.
Heidi the nurse, BSN, RN
248 Posts
Easy for you to say. You aren't the one being called sickening and "not learning from your mistakes". It just doesn't sit right with me and I won't let it pass without defending myself.