Gave meds to wrong patient

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Hiii I am a RN have been a nurse for 8 years. Been traveling since covid. I have been off work for 6 months and just recently took a contract. I usually work days, but this time I took a night shift contract. I had one day of training to get oriented to the floor and started my night shift the next day.

During my med pass, I had to pick up a patient in a rush, staffing was a mess. It was late at this time. I went into the Pyxis, got this patients, meds, and instead of going in the room to scan her, I scanned her badge out on the computer in the hallway. I didn't want to be a bother.  I had walked in and gave the wrong patient someone else's meds. My patient was next door. I thought I was in the right room. 

After she swallowed them I knew I messed up. I'm so worried and disappointed. I can't believe I didn't just do it the right way. I'm always rushing. 

The meds were 100mg of metoprolol, 75 mg of amitriptyline, 5 mg Eliquis and two units of Humalog. BP never went under 90/70

Because we were short staffed and we sent her to the ICU to be monitored. She survived they put her on vasopressor a low dose. She is OK but now I am just worried I'm going to be sent to the Board Of Nursing and my whole life is over. Contract cancel the whole works. Sued, jail everything is going through my head.

I think it's time for me to hand my badge in for good and find a new career because I clearly can't handle this anymore. 

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It was just a mistake. Stuff happens. Don't hand in your badge, that would be an emotional state, not logical. Take a PRN job if not full time, but don't give up. You worked hard for your license. As far as the BON, do you know if they reported you? Just BTW, if that is your real name, I would change it to something no employer or anyone on the internet can look up. 

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I made a similar mistake and I had been nursing for 38 years. It's a mistake. As long as you are up front and truthful about what happened you will be OK.

I understand how you feel. This mistake plus a couple of other events coupled with Covid led to my early retirement 

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I can call this a near miss. An incident report should be written.

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You have integrity for self-reporting. Mistakes can happen and you will certainly learn from this one but don't beat yourself up.

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I have to agree with the majority, I think the fact you reported the mistake helps your cause, since it's worse to let it go unreported. 

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Thank you, I'm so hard on myself and I go straight to the worse scenario. I really hope they don't cancel my contract and send me to the board. This happened Friday night, I will prolly hear something Monday. Thank you ❤️

 

Everyone thank you for replying, I am okay just a little talk that was all. Good luck to you all. 

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Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.
Charles Mokamba Obare said:

I can call this a near miss. An incident report should be written.

This is not a near miss, as the patient had symptoms such as hypotension from receiving the wrong medications and ended up in an ICU! 

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Specializes in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.

I'd recommend you pick up mal practice insurance ASAP. Seems like everything is going well now, but who knows 6 months, 1 year, 5 + years down the line something with this patient comes flying back at you. Mal practice for RN is super cheap anyhow.

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barcode120x said:

I'd recommend you pick up mal practice insurance ASAP. Seems like everything is going well now, but who knows 6 months, 1 year, 5 + years down the line something with this patient comes flying back at you. Mal practice for RN is super cheap anyhow.

I don't think malpractice will cover it if she wasn't covered at the time of the incident. 

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How did they find out about your mistake? You might not have needed to tell anyone. And this is why I always advise against taking 6 month long vacations because it is hard to get back into the swing of things after being out of work so long. 

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bluescoop said:

How did they find out about your mistake? You might not have needed to tell anyone. ...

Are you suggesting that the OP shouldn't have reported this error?

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