guilt over forgetting something?

Yeah, I do feel guilty, but for how long varies, lol.

If I was in the middle of a RRT and meds were late, then so be it. I would feel bad for the nurse having to pick up my slack, but stuff happens. The guilt would last until I hit my car.

Now if I totally had a brain meltdown and I forgot something, I would be apologizing to the nurse that had to wrap up something for me and it added to her work load.

Just the other day I forgot to empty a JP drain at the end of the shift. It was not a new surgery/drain, he had it for a while and did not have much drainage. The night nurse I endorsed the patient to is awesome and in afterthought I knew she would catch it but I still felt bad. I realized it, of course, at like 3 am and did not sleep well for the rest of the night. I had to get up at 5:40. This was yesterday, and I am STILL tired. It ended up the night nurse caught it and emptied it no problem. After I arrived for am shift, the surgeon took out the JP first thing in the morning. I told him I had forgotten to empty it when he asked what last out put was (he thought it was 80ml for shift) I told him it was for 24 hours and he didn't blink an eye. He just said, oh..ok.

My first six months as a new grad nurse, it was common to wake up in the middle of the night and worry about something, then I learned to tell mysef, Go to sleep, another nurse is caring for them now. And that usually works.

Right now, I'm feeling guilty over something else that happened at work. I promise I will NEVER do it again, hopefully it will be okay. I'm never going to listen to a "veteran nurse" again.

oh, i wouldn't do that if i were you. it's not veteran-ness that makes some people unreliable as mentors-- you just have to figure out which some of us aren't so bad. don't throw the old lady out with the bathwater.