Is this a huge mistake?

[sarahg88]

Im a new grad LPN whos still orientating. I was working a night shift, things seemed a little disorganized. Although they say team nursing is better, when theres no communication its not. I had one patient who had an IV med. I went in, hung the med, programmed it all correctly into the pump and then my buddy orientater came to me and said "why isn't any of your charting done?" first of all, I had NO idea i was to do all the charting for 7 pts. It wasn't communicated to me. I got a sick butterfly feeling in my tummy, got outta there and went to chart as there was only 30 minutes left before morning report. My buddy nurse went back to find that I hadn't hooked the IV line into the patients saline lock........... i felt like a complete and total idiot. The drug was wasted all over the floor and I made myself look incompetent. I've been doing SO well, and then this had to happen. I feel like I suck at a nurse and miss little things like that. Im afraid if my manager finds out she'll think im stupid & not trust me as a nurse on her unit ... what do you guys think? has anything similiar ever happened to you and how did it pan out?

[mazy]

Eventually you will get to the point where you learn to stand firm in your priorities. Giving an IV med is more important than charting, and so next time you will know to say to the nurse that you will do your charting when you have completed your patient care. Additionally, in term of priorities, charting is also less important than giving report. It's the last thing on your list to take care of.

My day is usually a blur of me trying to pull meds and do patient care while one person after another comes demanding attention and I have to say over and over again, please wait a minute I need to do x. People eventually learn, and you eventually learn to set those boundaries and how to say "no."

The reality is that it is usually very difficult to complete your charting and get out on time. So don't feel too bad about that. Although you will get a lot of flack from management, you will find that everyone has that problem and you will figure out your time management skills and figure out a system for doing things.

Also, when it comes to the job we all make stupid mistakes so just learn from it, don't dwell on it or think about how stupid you are, just learn and remember not to make that mistake again.

Another thing I learned along the way that really helped me is that I realized that I would much rather make my own mistake than make a mistake because I let someone else tell me what to do.

You'll get there, just give it time.