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It sounds like you are beating your self up too much abut it. Take it as a learning experience, learn your lesson, let your mistake make you a better nurse, drive on.
We do not have a second nurse verify our code meds, but the standard practice is for the code leader (not always a physician in my hospital) to verbally order the medication and for the medication nurse to repeat the order and dose and the code leader verifies. We have either a pharmacist (day shift) or RN (night shift) standing at the crash cart handing drugs to the med nurse.
First off, I'm glad that the patient will be OK. That's the number one thing. I'm also very glad that you have learned a very important thing. You should never be so rushed that you don't do the checks. Even when the patient is thrashing about, taking an extra 3 seconds isn't going to make one whit of a difference to their outcome. When you get that order, slow down a second, pull the drug, make sure that the right drug is what you have, and so on... just like they taught you in school. While I'm not saying go at a snail's pace, remember that just like they teach a lot of people when speed is of the essence, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. You would be amazed at how speedy you become overall when you slow down just a little bit to gain some smoothness...
Lastly, I'm super excited to hear that you have a very supportive team around you and that you all hopefully have learned something along the way. In previous jobs I've had people on both ends of that support spectrum and it's just simply awesome when you have such a supportive team to work with.
I made an error once. I grabbed the wrong patient label to run a stat venous blood gas. We caught it right away and I ran it under the correct patient. It didn't cause harm, but I was also in tears.
We start meds next semester in nursing school. I'm scared.
I'm glad your situation didn't result in harm to your patient. It is hard in code situations when things need to be done immediately to save someone's life.
LoveMyBugs, BSN, CNA, RN
1,316 Posts
I made a med error tonight.
I am feeling sick about it.
PT came in code 3 after having a sz in route
Pt was becoming combative and started to sz again respiratory acidosis.
MD ordered meds. I pulled the wrong med from the Pyxis
I looked at the 1st 2 letters of the med on the bottle while drawing it up.
The meds had the same concentration mg/ml
I didn't have a second RN verify.
There were 2 other nurses in the room, one charting one also giving meds.
I didn't stop.
I didn't verify my 5 rights....right drug
Pt was sz
Error was caught immediately by the charting nurse.
MD was in the room.
Pt is going to be okay
We debriefed, MD said the error did not hurt pt, did not cause harm.
My team was great, they hugged me, one cried with me as she had been in my situation before during a code.
Lesson learned even in an emergency, even if you are 100% sure you have the right drug. Stop make someone verify.