Has anyone made BASIC skill errors that made them feel incompetent?

jbluehorseh · Feb 1, 2012

Human ?? I’m not Human. just kidding. one thing to remember if you feel stresses, over whelmed or just a busy day that that is time to take a step back and look at what you are doing, ask for help or just take a break and gain some focus back. A ten minute will help you more good than you think, more so if you do it in the bathroom where no can bother you..

wooh, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

I consider my stupid mistakes to be entertaining stories for my coworkers. Until you've put a mask over a patient's face, that was NOT connected to O2, I'm winning. :) (Strangely, O2 sats will NOT go up when you're actively suffocating a patient. Who'd have thunk?)

Merlyn · Feb 1, 2012

I am a fairly new nurse. I will start out by saying that I use my resources and double check anything I am not 110% sure about.
Today I was at the end of a hectic shift and was connecting a patient's NG tube to continuous suction. I had a funny feeling when I left the ward, but I had checked all of my patients, my charts, my meds. When I got home I was running through everything I had done that day... then I placed the feeling. I am pretty sure I connected the suction bottle up incorrectly (pt to wall nub and wall nub to pt).
I called the ward and asked the night nurse to switch the tubing around. Now I feel completely inadequate and feel like quitting nursing. My question is if anyone else has done anything like this? How did you get over it? I feel horrible and sick to my stomach at the moment.

I can see the cause of your problem and It's BIG. You are human. I hate to tell you this from my throne this sitting up here on Mt. Olympus, but in all honesty you are a human being. Don't sweat the small stuff. We have all made them. The thing is to try and minimize the mistakes.

Sparrowhawk · Feb 1, 2012

Listen to Zeus there (oh Merlyn sorry) and the others..You are human! And even if you weren't human (like I dunno vampire, werewolf, demigod, fairy) They make mistakes too..or would it be mystakes...so...techincally you can't escape mistakes

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 3, 2012

You will make mistakes throughout your nursing career. We all will. Hopefully, they won't be serious mistakes. I try to double check what I've done before leaving the room. Still, we are pressed for time, so things happen. Treat it as a learning experience and move forward. As you become more experienced, the routine gets easier :)

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 3, 2012

i am a fairly new nurse. i will start out by saying that i use my resources and double check anything i am not 110% sure about.
today i was at the end of a hectic shift and was connecting a patient's ng tube to continuous suction. i had a funny feeling when i left the ward, but i had checked all of my patients, my charts, my meds. when i got home i was running through everything i had done that day... then i placed the feeling. i am pretty sure i connected the suction bottle up incorrectly (pt to wall nub and wall nub to pt).
i called the ward and asked the night nurse to switch the tubing around. now i feel completely inadequate and feel like quitting nursing. my question is if anyone else has done anything like this? how did you get over it? i feel horrible and sick to my stomach at the moment.

i'm not a new nurse . . . i've done the same thing with the suction once or twice. i know i'm neither stupid or incompetent . . . just human. other dumb things i've done include tripping over the chest tube cannister and knocking it over (then had to change it and then did it again), forgetting to plug in my iv pumps until the battery ran down and i had to get engineering to make them stop squealing and getting lost while attempting to transfer to patient (an off-service patient) to the step-down unit for the off service. that one was really embarrassing because i had the patient and his whole family trailing behind me asking me "how come you don't know where you're going?"

jbluehorseh · Feb 3, 2012

one night my tech and i were changing a patient who was going poo every couple of hours it seemed. during one of the changings the poo was the right consistency to get everywhere and it did. we ended up change the patient three times in a row.