Forced to resign

[Graceful_RN]

So, I've been a CNA for 5 years and am a new graduate nurse. I was working at a large hospital with 4 hospitals under its system. I've worked for this hospital in the past as a CNA as well. Anyways I got a job at this hospitals neuro unit, I was very excited. Unfortunately I got off on the wrong foot. I got great training and about 2 months into being on my own I was having a rough few nights at work. I had a patient with chest pain one night and did not order the troponin. Only ordered CPK and CPK-MB. Next night I was so swamped into 6 patients and running around, that I did not report High troponin level to Doctor. I see my errors. I messed up. Just wish I could do it all over again. My manager told me how angry the doctors were. The charge nurse did help me through the night and I asked questions when needed. I just wish I would have caught this. Now there were times at the job I intervened when appropriate such as a patient with hypoglycemia and giving them glauconate or a patient with hypertension after a stroke & calling the doctor and other times I certainly caught things and used appropriate nursing judgement. Needless to say I'm out of a job have only 8 months nursing experience and so far the only thing I'm finding is home health. Not sure where to go from here.

My future goals are to be a nurse practioner. Either geriatrics or fnp. I am also interested in wound care.

Any Advice? I know they say you should get that 1 year hospital expierence but I wonder if it's for me?

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Learn from your mistakes and move on. There are so many roads you can take in nursing.

[oceanblue52]

You will get a lot of wound care experience and teaching and chronic disease management in home health, any reasons you are hesitant?

[ARGH-N]

I'm sorry to hear of your experience. I work in hospital administration and the fact of the matter is this: Most errors are not individual mistakes, they are the result of a system problem. When working in complex systems such as healthcare, one cannot think of error in a linear fashion - that the outcome is the result of one mistake. There are exceptions, but in general, the results are built into to how the system is designed. Don't take it personally. It sounds like you were not working in a "just" culture. Own your part, grow from it, and move forward with becoming an excellent clinician. If you want to be a FNP, I recommend you continue working in a hospital for at least another year or two.

[YoutubeTheNP]

Few things come to mind after your OP.

1. Why is it up to you to order labs? That's the MD/NP's responsibility.

2. Why are you/MD even checking CK-MB's anyway? This is old medicine, some docs/hospitals still use this!?! It is a worthless lab test now that we have the high sensitive troponins!

3. That is unfortunate you did not see the high troponin, but doesn't your lab call critical results to you? Lab always phones my nurses for a trop > 0.5. Anything less is negative or indeterminate.

4. I always recommend to RN's, before becoming an NP, you have to be a nurse before you become a nurse practitioner. Your experience, or lack of is not adequate, especially with the simple mistakes. With your current resume, it will be very hard to get into NP school. You also need recommendations from colleagues or management, who probably would not give good feedback.

5. If you want to get into NP school, get back into the hospital and work as a nurse for a while until you have at least the basics down.

[Graceful_RN]

Just an update for anyone reading. I have logged back into allnursing after 4 years. Thank you everyone for all the positive feedback when I was a baby nurse.

4 years later getting forced to resign was indeed not the end of the world. After this incident I started a new job working on the med surg unit at a different hospital. I also have worked in pediatric home health. I currently work as an agency nurse and work at several different hospitals throughout my area.

Reflecting back on this I was a new nurse and I needed more support and was not confident in my abilities. Also, mistakes will happen as you are a new nurse but you must be accountable for yourself and continue to learn and grow. Lastly, if you have ever been in a situation like this and are seeking encouragement just know that you are good enough, you are a good nurse and that a new opportunity will be in your future and it is not the end of the road.

[EBinsfieldRN, ADN, RN]

Good for you for bouncing back so strongly! Med Surg was a great choice for cutting those baby teeth. Glad to hear that you're thriving!