Intolerant of RN errors

talk about a mistake. We had an older RN in her late 70's (not that age has anything to do with this)....but....she incorrectly translated a written doctors order for lisinopril 2.5mg. She wrote 12.5, and sent it to the pharmacy. The day nurses has been giving lisinopril 12.5 mg every single day for about a month to the resident and no one ever caught the mistake until the resident was sent home and a home health RN found the mistake.

The DON called ME AT HOME and asked me if I had ever given the medication. I told him I never work day shift and if he needed to know who gave it... LOOK AT THE MAR! OH! He hadn't thought of doing that! Ms. older RN, who by the way loved to buy the DON breakfast every morning from Mc Donald's, and who also by the way, NEVER made mistakes was "talked to" about her mistake. She later claimed she was at the age she didn't care if she lost her nursing license! My goodness, let's just let a patient/resident die instead of writing out the order correctly! Boy was she a pain to work around. After that fiasco she had to have her orders double checked by another nurse and was she flaming over that! She didn't care that she messed up, just the fact that someone had to re-check her written orders, and the fact that she was caught. The nerve of some people!

many industries expect 110% performance. in the military and law enforcement if you make a mistake people can die, in banking a mistake can cost money, sometimes millions. why should nurses be held to a different standard?

the other thing is we are paid to do right. in school we expected our parents to 'praise' our efforts but we are adults. we don't get praised for doing things right because that is what we are supposed to do. we get in trouble for doing things wrong because we are paid not to.

oh puh-lease!!

no one is suggesting that an 85% compliance rate is just fine in nursing..

but......

as already mentioned, nurses are taking care of more patients, sicker patients, malingering patients who think they are sick and riding the call light, and multiple family members who are visiting and calling, and the druggies, the psyche patients, and the growing population of aging and demented folks.....

plus....

new meds, new equipment, new software, new "customer service" program du jour, young doctors writing unsafe orders, triplicate charting, demands for no ot despite short staffing, computer glitches, md's who won't return pages, non-existant or uncooperative support staff, joint commission,or other surveys, cost cutting, and administration hopping on the buzzword management program of the week...

and it is the nurse's fault if anything, ever goes wrong?????

sure, i buy that..

oh puh-lease!!

no one is suggesting that an 85% compliance rate is just fine in nursing..

but......

as already mentioned, nurses are taking care of more patients, sicker patients, malingering patients who think they are sick and riding the call light, and multiple family members who are visiting and calling, and the druggies, the psyche patients, and the growing population of aging and demented folks.....

plus....

new meds, new equipment, new software, new "customer service" program du jour, young doctors writing unsafe orders, triplicate charting, demands for no ot despite short staffing, computer glitches, md's who won't return pages, non-existant or uncooperative support staff, joint commission,or other surveys, cost cutting, and administration hopping on the buzzword management program of the week...

and it is the nurse's fault if anything, ever goes wrong?????

sure, i buy that..

:yeahthat: excellently put!

and don't even get me started on why i had so much "incidental overtime" when managers allow nurses to regularly arrive 15 to 30 minutes late without consequence. just how am i to get out on time if i cannot report off on time???

hey i jus have a question for anyone.. i am 18 years old an recently started interning at a GYN office. It has only been about 2 1/2 weeks but I am overwhelmed at all the work and responsibility placed on me!!! I always feel i get in the way more than helping, do you all have anything to say about feelings toward interns or any advise on how to be successful?

:offtopic:

the american nursing system is a very throwaway society, not only do you use paper plates etc to eat and throw them away, but the system throws away their nurses on a whim, mistakes are made by us all, and yes if we make a msitake it should be addressed and we should learn from it, before i came to the states i had to do some online learning packets, i thought that they were jacho based and was told, this is not a blame and shame society, they only want to know about mistakes so that they can see why one was made and change the system, so that there is less chance of it happening again. the nursing administrators forget where they come from and need to work as a floor nurses occasionally to know how it really is.