First med error

girtster · Sep 5, 2012

Funny, since that's what the OP came here for... advice about how a med error might effect THE NURSE... that this is what became the focus of the conversation. You were quite harsh Capecod. Somehow the phrase "eat your young" comes to mind. A culture of safety does not come about from the shame/blame game. The OP and most nurses I know do everything in their power to be as safe as possible and errors still happen. The OP came to this forum, which is for nurses, looking for support and instead you gave her chatisement. Why you gotta kick some one when they're down? If nurses can't respect and support each other how can they do that for their patients/residents? Outside of individual performance failures (eg negligence, carelessness, incompetence) errors, especially small ones as this was, should be looked as a learning opportunity. Any institution truly interested in patient safety would never have some ridiculous 3 strikes policy. That would cause people to under report small errors that could identify system issues which might improve things before another more harmful mistake happens. The 3 strikes policy tells me your looking for people who make things look good for your company while you take your money, mistakes and all, to the bank. Those mistakes affect lives and for profit hospitals and care homes still get paid. You have to back people up. Not recurrent offenders and people who don't care, but honest people who do their best and still make a mistake. Hanging up the individual nurse for not being perfect solves nothing. It's a useless, fruitless attitude. I hope things worked out for the OP. I bet she's a great nurse.

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Sep 5, 2012

And I thought people came here for HONEST advice. I did not say I have a 3 strike rule at my facility. Frankly that's absurd. People make mistakes. People will always make mistakes. A really great nurse's first thought after making a mistake should be how that mistake will affect the patient, not herself. That was my point.

CountyRat · Sep 5, 2012

And I thought people came here for HONEST advice. I did not say I have a 3 strike rule at my facility. Frankly that's absurd. People make mistakes. People will always make mistakes. A really great nurse's first thought after making a mistake should be how that mistake will affect the patient, not herself. That was my point.

Honesty can also be kind. Mistakes affect both the patient and the nurse. The OP's post, and those that followed, make it clear that those of us who are willing to be honest about our mistakes have been devistated by them, and continue to suffer pain at the memories of these events, precisely because we do put our patients first. You would have more credibility if your posts reflected some sensitivity to that.