Please Help! Major ERROR

[FLA-RN]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting here and hope I can get advice. I'm a first year RN in Florida who made a huge mistake.

Here's the situation.....

During shift change I took an over the phone order from a doctor for a patient. I mentioned the new order to the nurse and moved on. At that time I was giving report to the oncoming nurse and dealing with getting a new patient at that same time from the ED. Well....I ended up writing the order in the wrong chart not even realizing it. I finished report, helped get the new patient settled and then went home. The next week when I came back to work I find out that I had wrote the order in the wrong chart and that patient had been recieving an antibiotic that was intended for another patient. To make matters worse the patient had a rash from it but is OK.

So......what really sucks is that if I had been able to check it after it had been transcribed by the secretary I would have caught it but since it was change of shift the on-coming nurse would have never know it was on the wrong patient and she check off on it.

I take full responsibilty for what happened--I feel so horrible I can't stand it!! I haven't slept in days and seriously doubting my choice as a nurse. There is sooooo much liability as a nurse. I love being a nurse but on my floor most patients are very sick and need much attention. Are ratio is 5:1 and you get pulled in many directions all day long by patients and familys!

Anyways. I'm going to call my manager because I'm not sure if she even knows what happened yet. Any Advice? Will I lose my job?

Thanks.

[onetiredmomma]

If someone wrote and incident report on the error I am sure your manager knows about it. Not sure why she hasn't talked to you... But, you are human, you made an error, no one died. Learn from this and move on. I doubt you will make this mistake again! Take a deep breath and please stop beating yourself up over this!

[HeatwaveRN]

You made a mistake. You'll never make this kind of mistake again. Learn from it and move on. At least you fessed up to it and no one was injured. I don't think you'll be fired over this. My question is though--why did neither doctors for each patient realized this was or was not ordered. Were both patients in need of antibiotics? Someone should have been following up on their meds. Makes me wonder.

[FLA-RN]

Thanks for your comment. My manager has been off of work that's why she probably doesn't know yet. I'm really trying hard not to beat myself up over this. I'm driving my husband nuts! I guess what also bothers me is that the chart checks. double signing, and doctors signing orders that are meant to catch these kinds of mistakes all got missed because of the timing. Worst feeling ever.....

[FLA-RN]

HeatwaveRN,

I can't really tell you either what happened. I'm suprised it was missed for more then 1 day also and why either doctor for either pt didn't notice that they were getting it and not getting it. They both were not on antibiotics. However, I am never taking a telephone order during shift change again as there is usually too much going on at that time!!

[bagladyrn, RN]

Yes, you made an error, but this is why most errors of this sort should be looked at as a system error. What needs to be investigated is why all of the "fail-safes" built into the system also failed.

You've done enough beating up on yourself to assure you will never repeat this mistake, now treat yourself as kindly as you would a coworker who had made the same error and try coming up with some new ideas to help keep this from happening with someone else.

[FLA-RN]

I'm waiting for a call back from my manager. I'll let everyone know what happens...... I have definetely learned from my mistake. I know several people on my unit have given the wrong medications to a patient and they still have there jobs or given medications on the wrong day and it is kind of shrugged off as a live and learn type thing. I guess this is kind of the same thing.

[gambutrol]

You did the right thing of admitting your mistake.

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

"try this"

1659 Telephone order from Dr. Jones 6/9/2020 for patient Mary Smith age 67 room 301.......t/o Dr. Jones/F. Nightingale RN. cosign C. Barton, RN

____________________________________________________________________

Ancef 1 gram IV every 8 hours for 36 hours. Call if problems. Stamp a separate sheet not one in the chart and flag sideways in the chart.

Who knows might work.

[travel nurse2009]

you have beaten yourself up enough about this. i am a retired nurse of 25yrs.made mistakes,thank god didn't kill anybody but always keep in mind what can i learn from this.you will never make this particular mistake again.also remember "the hurrieder i go the behinder i get." don't let anybody rush you unless there is something on fire or there is a code going on.i've seen most of my codes at shift change.you should also get your own nursing Liability Insurance,any hospital will throw you under the bus if they can.don' give up, if you were a bad nurse you wouldn't be this upset.let me know how it goes.

[rita359]

It was a mistake but did not result in loss of life or limb. You will be more vigilant when writing any telephone order. It could have happened at any time in a shift. You have learned a lesson and probably helped many nurses here. Another day, another lesson learned.

[FLA-RN]

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm still waiting for my NM to call me back. Everyone sure is right though. I made a mistake and I'll learn from it. There's a lot of "caddy" nurses on my unit who like to pick and point mistakes of other nurses whether they are new or seasoned. It's amazing to see the lack of team work and division between the night nurses/day nurses/weekend nurses/nursing aides who are always quick to blame others. I'm sure there will be certain nurses talking about my mistake oow but I'll have no problem admitting it and hopefully helping to make sure it doesn't happen to others.