help! My g/f stuck herself...

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello all, I hope this is the right forum for this.

She is an ICU RN, ~1yr out of school. A few nights ago she messed up somehow and stuck herself in her thumb with a needle after drawing blood from a patient. (elderly man) I understand there are saftey devices that have dramatically reduced the number of these incidents. Anyways, they tried to get in touch with his family for permission to screen his blood...but they can not be found. She supposedly has to wait 6 months to know either way about HIV...

Aside from being worried about HIV, hepatitis or any other terrible thing that can be contracted, she is also worrying about this move jeopardizing her job.

As far as I know, she has had a flawless record, and is held in high regard overall. She is worried about this really hurting her reputation.

Do you have any insight on this? Are there any statistics out there that may set her at ease? I apologize for coming on here with this question (as I'm clearly not a nurse) but I wanted to do something to possibly make her feel better. Thanks in advance :)

I also don't know why they told her she had to wait 6 months to be tested for HIV.

I missed that. Both places that I have worked the standard of care is to be drawn right away, whether or not the source pt is tested. Two reasons: one is to have a baseline to prove you didn't already have the antibodies, and two so that there can be a trend over the next months as you're tested again. If she's being made to wait 6 months to even be tested herself and is unfortunate enough to come down with it, she would be hard pressed to prove it was from this exposure. If her employer refuses to test her now, she should go to her doc and have herself tested.

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BSN: Im obviously worried about her health. When I mentioned 'statistics' I was hoping for something like, ".0005 % of nurses who get stuck with a low risk needle contract HIV" or something similar.

When I had a stick a couple of months ago, my staff counsellor told me there were no recorded cases of anyone who had been stuck with a low risk needle contracting HIV. Anywhere. Ever.

I took his word for it and didn't research it myself, but that's my understanding.

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When I had a stick a couple of months ago, my staff counsellor told me there were no recorded cases of anyone who had been stuck with a low risk needle contracting HIV. Anywhere. Ever.

I took his word for it and didn't research it myself, but that's my understanding.

Even getting stuck with a high-risk needle, the odds are in your favor, but it's hard to think about that when it's your first stick.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Malloy. . .as nice as your posts make you seem, I have a real problem with male significant others who post about problems their female nurse partners are having. Nurses are battleships and are perfectly able to stand up for themselves. I, for one, would be extremely insulted if someone were forcing unwanted interference upon me regarding a problem I have to deal with. Your SO's significant absence from this discussion makes me wonder what your real motivation here is. If you are worried about the impact this is going to have on you, just say so, so we can get you the correct information you are looking for. Otherwise, I'd like to know why your girlfriend isn't speaking for herself here.

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Specializes in ICU/PCU/Infusion.
otherwise, i'd like to know why your girlfriend isn't speaking for herself here.

maybe you missed malloy's response as quoted here:

bsn: im obviously worried about her health. when i mentioned 'statistics' i was hoping for something like, ".0005 % of nurses who get stuck with a low risk needle contract hiv" or something similar. while she was (again) obviously worried about that, she seemed more worried about her job status. she was very emotional (as well as sick) and its not the best time of the month for such trauma.

apparently, this is a bad "time of the month" for her, and she is incapable of mounting her own inquiry.

i have to agree with daytonite on this one. while malloy does seem to be genuinely concerned for his girlfriend, this last quote from him does shed a different light on this for me. i'm not sure what her period (and i'm guessing here) has to do with the obvious trauma that she has suffered.

i hope all ends well for both of you.

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Specializes in Looking for a career in NICU.
maybe you missed malloy's response as quoted here:

bsn: im obviously worried about her health. when i mentioned 'statistics' i was hoping for something like, ".0005 % of nurses who get stuck with a low risk needle contract hiv" or something similar. while she was (again) obviously worried about that, she seemed more worried about her job status. she was very emotional (as well as sick) and its not the best time of the month for such trauma.

apparently, this is a bad "time of the month" for her, and she is incapable of mounting her own inquiry.

i have to agree with daytonite on this one. while malloy does seem to be genuinely concerned for his girlfriend, this last quote from him does shed a different light on this for me. i'm not sure what her period (and i'm guessing here) has to do with the obvious trauma that she has suffered.

i hope all ends well for both of you.

yup! i just could not, for the life of me, imagine where a nurse with 2 years of experience would even remotely get the idea that their job was at risk for a needlestick...for the very reasons daytonite described in her last post. i just find that hard to swallow. a person woudn't have to work in a hospital very long to know that this is a job hazard and treated like any other on-the-job injury, and take an appropriate course of action.

my "instinct" told me was it's the so that is really concerned about the job.

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