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Discussion

Does making the same mistake twice make me a bad nurse?

As an OR nurse, I made the same very specific mistake twice.

I was prepping an extremity, and in both instances, I touched something else to move it out of the way (first time a chuck, second time moved a drape back), and switched hands without thinking of what I had just did. Just plain inattention and automaticity.

After that, I vowed to myself to never touched anything else during prepping again and never made the mistake since.

Does doing this twice make me a dangerous or bad nurse, one who is too inattentive to take care of patients safely? It has me feeling this way.

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    • Featured Replies

    Are you new to the OR? If you are, I don't think its a big deal at all. Its hard to get used to. Just learn from it! ?

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    • Experts

    Perhaps not so much as inattentive as not adhering to the specific boundaries of the sterile field and working within those boundaries, Cheisu.

    The scrub nurse works within the boundaries of the the sterile field and the circulating nurse is responsible for that which is outside of the sterile field. If a chuck or a drape needed to be moved outside of the sterile field, the circulating nurse would need to be informed and perform the task.

    Working within the boundaries of the sterile field does take a lot of focus in the beginning and eventually becomes second nature.

    Good luck to you, Cheisu!

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    • Guides

    you are absolutely not a bad nurse! Especially since you have made these mistakes and are worried enough about it to post here...

    You'll do fine. Like Davey said, keeping the sterile field boundaries will soon become second nature for you!

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