FIRED

Be careful. If you lie on your application -- or omit this job -- and your new employer finds out about it .... you'll probably be fired from your 2nd job, too. Most employers consider lying or concealing requested information to be justification for automatic termination. They can find out if someone from your old job comes to work there, they have friends around town and ask around, etc,.

As far as what to do ... You'll need to be able to discuss your mistakes and what you have done (and will continue to do) to prevent them from happening again. You'll need to take responsibility for those mistakes and show that you have learned from them and will do better in the future.

Is there anyone at your old job who would give you a reference describing your good qualities?

Well, you can go with honesty and deal with the consequences or you can leave it off and take your chances. You will still deal with the consequences if you are found out. Sounds like the rock and the hard place when the job market is so horrid. Either way, you need to fix the initial problem to make sure it doesn't happen again. Good luck.

When nurses make mistakes, its important they own up to them, remedy the deficiency and go from there.

Since your issue involved med errors, I would look into taking a remedial pharm course or some CEUs in medication administration/time management. Then....when you go to apply to another job, you say; "I made two (or however many there were) med errors, realized that my pharm/time management was the problem and promptly took this course (insert name here) to remedy this situation. I am now much more confident in my abilities to provide safe care to my patients."

The big thing is to own up to your mistake: leaving this job off your resume leaves you open to the question: what else would you omit?

Well, once again, I found that llg had posted most everything I was going to say ... :)

Getting fired is not a career-ender in nursing. Lots of nurses have gotten fired, and picked up and gone on with their careers. Finding another job will be harder in this current economic climate than it would have been in easier times, but you'll survive.

As others have said, you need to be able to show in interviews that you take responsibility for your mistakes, you have thought seriously about where you went wrong and what your weaknesses are, and that you have taken concrete steps to improve/correct them. It's important that you not sound defensive or blame your previous employer for the situation, or badmouth your previous employer in any way (always a no-no anyway).

I strongly encourage you to practice talking about these issues and answering the questions you know you're going to get in interviews, out loud, in the bathroom mirror at home, and with friends or family members, just like you would in a real interview, until you are comfortable talking about them and have worked out what you want to say, before you go on interviews for new jobs -- don't wait until you're in an interview and just wait to see what pops into your head at that moment! :) As with anything else, the better prepared you are going in, the better you're likely to come across in the interview.

Best wishes! Similar things have happened to lots of nurses who have gone on to have successful careers in nursing. you can get past this.