feel like i keep making mistakes

[ava'smomRN]

this is probably gonna be long but I am stressed and need to vent.

I am a new nurse working in recovery room of a level 1 trauma center. its vry busy and where I work we get really sick patients. this isn't even about really sick pts but just some background.

anyway a few weeks ago I had a pt who had a liver ablation done, he was fine for me but the next day I came to work and was told that he had been burnt and was asked did I see it. I don't remember seeing a burn so I documented accordingly. this was a big issue as u can imagine and had to be investigated. the pt was ok though.

today was awful. I had young pt who had just been shot. he had an atreigram done, usually a surgical resident comes out along with anesthesia and describes what they did in the or but this time it was just anesthesia. well the pt was yelling. cursing, and asking us to leave him alone. I quickly peeked at a drsg of his R knee and L thigh and palpated pulses and let him sleep. about an hour or so later he asked for the urinal, I give it to him and lets him go. he calls me and tells me he is bleeding! I looked at his R groin and the drsg is saturated and the sheet under him, I turned him to see if ther was more blood pooling, put a new pad under him, checked his vitals and called the resident. the resident says if he's stable I will be there in a half hr. about five min later I check my pt and the new pad has new blood. I initially thought the blood was old, I called he residen again and asked him to come now. it took the resident about half hour or so to finall get to see the patient. when they arrived I was getting my next pt who came out confused and agiatated. that's another story. anyway the gunshot patient ended up having to go back to the or, he turend out to be fine, they had to repair a small bleed that he developed.

while all of the chaos is going on, someone drew labs for me and I assumed it was a cbc and coaggs so I completed the lab sheet and sent the labs, not knowing I sent a tube used for a panel instead of coaggs. I was supposed to send all 3 but wasn't paying close attention. the lab calls me and tells me what I did with attitude of course and tells me they can only do the cbc cuz that's the only thing that was sent correctly.

sorry this is so long and sloppy. I really needed to vent. I am actaully typing with my pda cellphone. lol any advice/words of wisdom? I am terrified that I am gonna go into work firday and be in so much trouble and may even be fired. so much stress

[NurseJR08]

I also am a new grad working in the pacu, although we aren't a trauma center so our patient acuity is a little lower :) If I am ever in doubt about anything, I always ask another nurse to come over and assess the situation. I am very lucky to work with very experienced and supportive nurses who are always willing to help me. It is frusturating to get incomplete reports from anesthesia/the OR RN though! I think a lot of it is just getting more experience and knowing what to do in those types of situations...if in doubt, ask for help!!