mistake - unable to fix

Nurses General Nursing

Published

to make long story short. had order to dc picc and culture tip. wbc up and picc insertion site leaking. dc'd picc forgot to clip for culture. no good reason other than busy day - a lot on mind. nothing i can do now and dreading work tomorrow. sure i will have to explain myself to don and ordering dr. upset. anyone with similiar experience?

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Specializes in adult ICU.

Did the patient get blood cultures? If he/she did, you are probably ok -- the doc will get the same info. He just won't be able to pin the infection (if anything grows) to the PICC line.

It was a screwup, but probably no harm done. Don't beat yourself up too much about it.

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Specializes in Acute Care.

I hope you filled out an incident report and notified the doctor. We all make those sorts of mistakes when we are running just as fast and hard as we can. We are human beings. The important part was to let the doctor know what happened and fill out an incident report with what you did to try to correct things, such as getting blood cultures.

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dr was notified and incident report written up.

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It was a screwup, but probably no harm done. Don't beat yourself up too much about it.

Precisely!

What did not happen....

You didn't forget to DC the PICC line altogether leaving the patient to spike a fever of 101.5 @ 02:00 on the night shift nurse, who delayed calling the physician another hour hoping the Tylenol would work, but has no choice because the patient is tachycardic with the temp now 102.8!

Everything is relative in life.

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Far worse things have happened. You realize that you made a mistake. You feel badly, which is a good thing -- you're not taking it lightly. Apologize, take your lumps, take the lesson that you've learned, and become a better nurse tomorrow. There's not one of us here that can't say :imdbb:.

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thank you all so much, i feel better.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

One things for sure: you will probably never make this mistake again! At least that has been the case with my fumbles over my 20 year career span. Every now and then we screw up and realize that we are human. Personally, I think it makes you a better nurse. Live and learn!

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Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.

They will have to use a regular blood culture now. If they do not know the cause of the elevated WBC count and it started to increase after after a line placement...... they usually will draw a blood culture from the line and one from the periphery. If they do not want to wait they will pull the PICC and culture it. If it was leaking IV fluid from or near the insertion site..it either had a hole or the patient has a thrombus(backtracking) along the course of the PICC or in the central vessels...unless that was purulent drainage at the site. Anyway, if the pt has s/sx of an infection they are going to treat it anyway whether or not they find the source.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Well have all made mistakes.........you probably will never do it again. I remember a biggie I made and thank god I wasn't new and the MD respected me..........After an extermely arduous intubation.....the patient was an utter mess.......blood all over the tape and face......just a disaster. S0.....being the typical nurse and no one is allowed to be dirty or messy (just a little OCD) and have a fresh bed. SO.......I went on to retape the patinets ETT tube........To my HORROR :eek: I accidentally snipped the patients pilot on the ETT tube. I wanted to vomit! :crying2: I rigged a temporary fix with an angiocath (minus the needle),a heplock,and a tegederm. When I called the MD I told him to yell at me now and get it out of his system because I had done something really stupid! When I finally told him......crickets:uhoh3:.......then sigh........."If it was anyone but you I'd be pi--ed.......why did you have to sound so guilty and be so honest........I'll have to remember to kill you in your next life";). I have never lived it down to this very day and my story of "My worst nightmare" is being told to new orientee's to this very day........:nurse:

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Specializes in Psych/CD/Medical/Emp Hlth/Staff ED.

Mistakes happen. If it makes you feel any better, our Infectious Doctors say it is no longer considered to be good practice to culture PICC or central line tips. They have a high chance of being contaminated on the way out by skin bacteria which results in many patient receiving antibiotics unnecessarily.

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Whether or not is was the PICC line that caused the infection, they still have to treat the pt. The PICC line culture was only to further isolate source. It makes no difference once they get the blood culture results. Picc= blood contact. Did the pt. have dialysis, recent surgery, foley, etc. Just change out the PICC, all the rest is supposition at this point.

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