I feel horrible

[Ms. Smarty Pants RN]

I have been working as a RN for about 9 months now on the Tele floor. I get 4 patients on my shift. I am part-time and am wondering if I need to work more. Today I had my first pre-open heart patient. I got all the labs,and paperwork together. I ended up staying til 3am because we were short.

When I gave report to the oncomming nurse, she informed me that the pulmonary doctor wrote orders for in the AM of the OHS. For some reason when I saw them, I just assumed that they could be done after the surgery since he saw that the patient was going for OHS in the AM. The ABGs and PFTs were done but the VQ scan and venous doppler were not. I was wrong and the nurse was peeved and called the supervisor about the situation. I offered to call the doctor, as it was my error and she told me to just leave. As i was getting my stuff, I overheard her say that people like me should not be allowed to work there and that they are going to try to get the test done. I really didn't think that the tests needed to be done. I was overwhelmed with 2 of my other patients.

Now, I feel like I can't do anything right. I know that when I go back that others will know about this and I will feel stupid. I was just starting to think I can do this but now I am afraid that I might do something like this and cause a pt to miss a surgery that they really need.

[LilyBlue]

FTR, I definitely would not have "let it go" when you overheard her talking about you. I would have confronted her in a neutral tone: "Was there something you wanted to say?"

I honestly believe the most important thing is to never let them see you sweat. Apologize, don't get overly emotional, stay and fix what you can (regardless of whether the oncoming nurse tells you not to worry about it). If it's something that you feel will be written up, make an appt to discuss it with your manager, telling her your side, how the error occurred, how you plan to avoid the error in the future.

This nurse is a miserable gal. I work with a girl who doesn't want to have to do ANYTHING on her shift: If you do all the tubing changes, PICC line changes, and leave even one for her, she complains to everyone that she was left stuff to do. Her work hsitory speaks louder than her words: She's had to change hospitals about every one year. She's 20-something and out of hospitals.

[luvmy2angels]

We ALL make mistakes, we are human. It is sad that there are still nurses out there that find it necessary to make others feel aweful when we make a mistake. I agree that she was probably more mad that it inconvenianced (sp?) her. It makes work so much nicer when shifts work with shifts, you can only get so much done and things happen sometimes that make us fall behind and the next shift will have to pick up where we left off. But that is nursing!! Good Luck and go in there tomorrow with a big, confident smile on your face!! Don't them get you down because people like that thrive on knowing they made you feel bad!!:)