Failed a Med Pass Today

[Chris189]

Everything was going fine. I was passing PO's, hanging IVPB's, etc. Around 10am I passed some PO's to a woman. No problems. I then hungg an IVPB with my instructor in a another room. As im documenting for the IVPB I remembered I had to sign for the PO's I had just passed. I was going to finish documenting the IVPB and go document for the PO's. Right then the primary nurse came and asked me if i had passed those 10am meds. I said yes and I was coming over there to document that right now. She knew that I was passing all the meds for that pt and had watched me pass them. As I walk around the corner I see her with the MAR and talking to my instructor. My instructor comes over and said that we needed to talk. She said that she going to fail me for med pass because of unsafe practice. Now I understand the importance of documenting right after you do something. Im not downplaying that I made a mistake. My instructor said what if the primary had passed those meds again(however unlikely because she knew I was doing them and watched me pass them). I guess im not really sure what im trying to say. Just frustrated with the whole situation. Feel free to chime in here.

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

My instructor said what if the primary had passed those meds again(however unlikely because she knew I was doing them and watched me pass them). I guess im not really sure what im trying to say. Just frustrated with the whole situation. Feel free to chime in here.

However unlikely, it might happen. If you don't sign it, you didn't do it

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

I totally agree with your first statement!!! Sometimes, I really feel like I am being HAZED into the sorority of Nursing!!!! Long nights working on care plans, when I haven't even assessed my patient. Maybe 3 hours of sleep before I pass meds & perform patient care! It is crazy!!!!!

Go check out the kind of clinical prep med students have to do, and get back to me.

[suanna]

I think the instructor is right. The primary nurse could have also administered those same medications after you and double dose the patient. Whether she knows student nurse is doing them or not. They may not fully depend on students and want to make sure the patient had the meds.

If the primary nurse is that ignorant than she shouldn't be working in nursing. It was the student nurses assigned responsibility to pass meds. The first assumption has to be that they did thier job until proven otherwise. What is more likely- a student nurse got behind on thier charting or a student nurse decided to skip the most scrutinized area of thier clinical experience. Why would a nurse pass those meds again WITHOUT CHECKING WITH THE STUDENT!!!! They would have to get NEW doses from pharmacy to replace the ones already given so they could "give" the meds the student "skipped"!!! That is a lot of effort and streaching to do something that stupid. It boggles the mind to think a nurse would have that much time to waste just to make the wrong decision. I stand by what I said- the nurse and instructor are nit-picking and apparently have so little actual skills to pass on they have fill thier time with this nonsense. It's like saying a nurse will call a code and start compressions on patient because the telemetry just documented a flat line. Pay no attention to the fact that the patient is alert and yelling, it couldn't be that a lead fell off- the tele documentation has to dictate the action dosen't it!

[anonymousstudent]

My instructor specifically told me to walk away from documenting an injection the other day because I had to do something else. She said to come back to it, and I did, about 25 minutes later.