Getting stuck with the blame

I'm a new night nurse, 3 weeks in, starting off in the ICU and had this situation arise yesterday .

Patient was transferred to ICU from telemetry and nurse knew barely anything about the the patient except he was admitted for exacerbation of a pulmonary issue. I took report and it was mentioned in passing that approx 4 days ago (prior to admission), he had experienced some unilateral weakness with trouble breathing, had been to see his pulmonologist, and was sent home with a bronchodilator after the doctor said he "didn't think the patient had a stroke" and should just work on the respiratory issue. A day later the patient came to the ER with worsening SOB and was admitted tele.

I didn't see any signs of the said weakness (patient was in no real condition to effectively assess for weakness anyway) but relayed this info to the day Nurse A. during report. At the time it was mentioned, I wasn't sure I had Nurse A's full attention, but she's very difficult to read and somewhat moody . I cared for the patient the following night. The doctors had been to see the patient during the day but no new orders were given.

The following morning when the Nurse A arrived I told her in report that I still hadn't really noticed the unilateral weakness that had been reported to the pulmonologist, but documented the pulmonologist was aware of the problem days earlier. Make a long story short, Nurse A insisted I never relayed any such information about weakness to her during first report wanted to why I hadn't already notified the attending physician of the problem. "Nurse A." then contacted the attending who called neuro for the case, but I was later told by "Nurse A" the patient indeed had a stroke days earlier and was declining, and that the decline was basically my fault because I hadn't made anyone aware of a potential neuro issue.

Being a new nurse, I learned three lessons through it:

1) Attitude significantly effects how effective communication is - the message obviously didn't make it to the receiving day nurse.

2) Everyone will always claim they had no responsibility - docs, nurses, whoever - and it's often your word against another's.

3) There will always be something you don't know, simply because of lack of experience with the situation, and you will learn these things the hard way. Today and 20 years from now. It's the nature of the game, and as a nurse your expected to know EVERYTHING but you really can't. In my case, I wasn't aware there is ZERO communication between docs, they will allow a potentially major issue to go unaddressed (like what happened before the patient was admitted to the hospital), and that an attending physician is the only doc who can write a for a consult. Therefore it's always best to call the attending when you're transferred a patient from any part of the hospital and give a full rundown of the situation, because things get missed or not addressed. Even if your thought, like in my case, that they had been. You will get stuck with the blame.