feeling dumb

[esunada]

sO i made a really stupid mistake and looked at the wrong insulin order - i looked at the daytime vs. bedtime in the MAR and thus put in the wrong units. When my nurses did the double check she saw my stupid mistake. I think I would have realized on my third check, but gosh if she hadn't checked it I could have potentially given the wrong dose. Obviously I should have noticed the wrong time, but I wasn't thinking. I'm at the end of my clinicals now this year and I can't believe i'm making these kind of mistakes. Overall, I'm doing well, but it seems like for every many times I do something right, I'll have a brain fart and do what I've been doing right all this time wrong. How can I prevent brain farts! Even asking name and birthdate, for every 50 times I do it right, I forget one time, which is obviosuly not safe. But I don't know how to prevent these brain farts from happening. I'm just scared I'll be a bad nurse and mess up horribly someday. Any advice or common experiences are welcome!

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

1) that's what double checks are for

2) now that you know how easy it is to mix up the times, you know to be more careful.

yes, it could have been a big deal- but it was caught, and the patient didn't get the wrong dose.

:) Hang in there :)

[szeles23]

and remember you are human, and humans do make mistakes.

[Miller86]

Mistakes are a good wake up call. It will surely remind you for the next time. No one got hurt and it was caught in advance so don't sweat it.

Best of luck in your clinicals:D

[Florence NightinFAIL, BSN, RN]

Be glad that you asked for a double check (some don't) and don't beat yourself over it. It was a good catch - no harm done.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

I always wanted to depend on myself so anytime I had a close call or something did not go well for me I would evaluate the situation. So you need evaluate why you made the mistake. Sometimes it is a bad system in which we have to work..sometimes it is poor planning...sometimes it is just plain old fatigue. No matter what the cause or causes you then have to take corrective action. So how did you make the potential error. It sounds like you just looked at it quickly...so after you drew it up perhaps you should have double checked it..even read it out loud to your self..and ask yourself..does this order make sense?

Several years back when census was low...I remember the hospital decided to put oncology pts on same floor with resp ts. I remember having a discussion with several of my co-workers saying this is not worth the money they will save b/c I saw the potential for mistakes to happen. First they were placing immunocompromised pts on the floor with resp infection pts of all kinds...then they were also having some RN not used to either type of these pts taking care of them...Well I was not surprised to hear that over the weekend a nurse had given some PO chemotherapy to a resp pt...Uh OH...among other things a perfect example of a nurse not knowing the patient...did it make any sense to give this resp pt this chemotherapy agent...why was the pt getting it? I have given chemotherapy agents for diagnoses other than Ca but this was not the case in this situation.

So now you have evaluated the issue..try to find your own solution to the problem. Many times you have to work around some system flaws that you often can not change . Perhaps you need to not rush during medication preparation...minimize distraction..perform a second check esp on critical medications...never eliminate the double check on critical medications. do you check the MAR at the bedside?

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I agree with iluvit.....and practice makes perfect. The longer you work the more instilled your routine will be so that when your routine is disturbed you''ll notice.

I worked at the bedside for 32 years, I never stopped my double checks on several drugs...insulin and heaprin to name 2. I also always had someone double check my calulations before I would give the drug.....just to be sure because one the drug is given....you can't get it back.

Did it take me longer? Sometimes....but it was worth the wait.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

I remember an incident with insulin back in 1986..... I worked nights, and had been floated to a med-surg floor (from neuro)... different end of the building, different protocols w/patients, different times to give insulin....not any excuse for what happened, but reasons...

I completely forgot to give the dose... zippo...the big zilch...nada.... When I got home, and was lying down to go to bed, it hit me like a bullet- and i called the floor. It ended up 'only' being an hour late, so no harm done. But I felt horrible, and like the biggest horror to hit nursing since, well, I don't know when. The nurse I called was very nice, and got more irritated with my repeated apologies than the actual omission. I'd only been a nurse for a year- and it was another valuable learning experience, that fortunately didn't harm the patient :)

[gigglymo]

The patient wasn't harmed, and you were following procedure and double-checking - so it got caught. Good job, and I bet you'll be more careful next time. :)