Help!! I made a medication error!!

Nursing Students Student Assist

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This is my fifth semester in nursing school. I'm doing my practicum in the ER. Today was super busy and I made a mistake and gave the wrong meds to a patient. I am so upset and am fearing that I may not be able to graduate or finish. I have a meeting with my instructor and Dean. So what happened?? It was 7:30 am and my preceptor and I were talking about discharging a patient in a hall bed. RN pulled the meds and gave them to me to give. (Note: I don't have any access to the emr in the ER at the facility I'm doing my practicum). So I gave the meds to the patient we were talking about. Wrong patient!! Yes I did bad by not verifying with the RN and MAR or patient identifiers. I am so worried about failing the semester and program. Is there any hope.

Patient was fine. I did verify allergies. And notified MD immediately after. Meds were indomethacin, amoxicillin and Claritin.

On 3/3/2020 at 11:03 AM, Rose_Queen said:

Not in my area. The student is giving meds with their instructor (or preceptor if in capstone) and do the documentation themselves. It is not left up to the nurse to document that another person gave the meds.

Same here. I had access to the EMR from my first clinical. We didn’t start documenting until my second clinical. At the end of each clinical day, the instructor had to sign off on each students charting. If one of us made a mistake, the instructor would call us over, discuss it with us, make changes if necessary, and then sign off. When I did my practicum (or capstone as some call it), I also had access to the EMR. I selected my preceptor in the EMR and she had to sign off on my charting. But I did all my own charting and she did all her own. At first, my preceptor was with me for everything. As she saw what I could do and I guess became comfortable, she loosened the reins a bit. By the end of my practicum, I did everything on my own. Even administering meds. There was a list of things we were not allowed to do without the preceptor in the room but if I remember correctly they were things like administering blood products and things like that. But as for oral or IV meds, it was at the preceptors discretion whether or not he/she had to be right there with us while doing it. In clinicals though, the instructor always oversaw us administering meds.

However, I do think it’s a huge issue giving the meds to the wrong patient. I think that like others said, the preceptor has to bear some responsibility. If the student does not have access to the EMR, that takes away one of the checks to make sure the right patient is getting the right meds. Of course, the student still has the additional checks that should of been done to catch the error. But again, with no EMR access, just handing some meds to a student that have no name on them, it’s kind of hard for the student to be sure they’re going to the right person. I think failing the student is a little harsh. But again, giving the wrong patient meds is a big thing so I do get it.

OP, I had a course that I failed and had to redo at the end right before my practicum started. I was crushed. Mostly because of the reasoning behind it but I’m not getting into that ? I didn’t know you could appeal the decision. I was told to go above the instructor to the one overseeing the course, which I did. I thought it stopped there. When another student failed a course for something that I totally understood, the student appealed it n won! I couldn’t believe it because (1) I didn’t know you could appeal it ?‍♀️ (my own dumb fault for not looking up guidelines for what you can do if you fail) and (2) there were many reasons the student was failed and it was just plain shocking that student was able to beat all those! So I regretted not trying to appeal mine because if that person was able to beat it, then I definitely could given why I failed! But I didn’t and I repeated the course and finished it n went on to do my practicum and graduate. Took me a lil longer but no biggie now that it’s done n over with! So just think about what you want to do. If you want to just take it, move on and repeat the course then do that! If you think it’s a little unfair being failed, then try for an appeal. Either way, you’ll graduate and become a nurse and you’ll always have this experience to remember and hopefully learn from! Good luck! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank You everyone who commented. I have graduated nursing school and am officially a RN. I definetly learned from my errors and have become a better nurse for it. I now work in a nursing home which is very different from ER. I love my residents and taking care of them. Thank You once again. 

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