What is the worst mistake anyone has ever made? What happened to the patient? I am a new grad float pool RN who was working in ER last week. I was the only nurse working in our "overflow" area. That is where patients go when they are admitted, but no beds are available on the floors. I was taking care of three patients. That dosen't sound bad, but I had to do all of the admitting paperwork also. It's like having three admits all at once. Anyway I had a patient who was being admitted for exacerbation of his COPD. He was on Bi-Pap in the ER. Respiratory suggested I put him on a nonrebreather to transport upstairs because the Bi-Pap machine did not have a battery source so it would not travel. At 10pm my patient took his PO's and had sips of water. Shortly after, he got a room upstairs and I took him up on a nonrebreather. When I got him to the floor his sats were very low, (81-82%) so we ran around to get a flow meter so that we could get him back on the bi-pap. Of course the only flow meter available didn't work properly so we put him on the bi-pap and used the portable O2 source. I stayed with him until his sats climbed back into the 90's. I went out to the desk and told his nurse that his sats were back up but that the portable O2 tank did not have much left in it. I then went back downstairs to my patients in the ER. A short time later the Nursing Supervisor called me to say that I took an unresponsive patient upstairs, and just left him there. And that right then he was getting tubed and sent to MCCU. I told her just what happened. It was close to shift change at this time, so she did not investigate but instead let the Night Nursing supervisor deal with it. The Night NS, came to tell me that it was another nurse (not the nurse for the patient) that called to say I just left this man. Yet another nurse spoke up for me, to say that I did not just leave him, that I stayed up there with him for a while before I left him. And that I reported off to his nurse before I left the floor. Needless to say I was devastated!!! I was crying, and shaking. The NS told me not to worry about it, the patient was intubated in the MCCU and was hemodynamically stable, and would be just fine. She said that was "a typical COPDer" The rest of the shift was horrible (I worked until 3am.) Now, I am feeling very incompetent, and I do not want to go back to work. I am sure that other nurses feel that I should not be allowed to take care of patients. I feel horrible! I asked myself earlier in the night why this man was going to a regular floor when he needed a unit bed, but I did not act on my gut feeling. I told the Night NS this and she said I should always act on my gut. Basically she told me to get over it and move on. I asked her what would happen to me and she said nothing. I didn't do anything wrong. She also said she would be speaking to the other nurse who called the NS. Later she came back to speak to me and tell me that she spoke to the other nurse. She told me not to worry about it. Look at it as a learning experience, and that everyone has made mistakes. I am not so sure anyone had done anything this horrible though!
