Is this "normal"?

[firstyearstudent]

I don't know if I am just not cut out to be a nurse or this is par for the course. About one out of every 20 shifts I realize that there is something important that I forgot to do. I just get so busy sometimes things fall through the cracks. I try to stay as organized as I can but...I don't know.

The last shift I worked I forgot to do follow up to make sure the patient got her Echo (she didn't) and they needed get a baseline before starting chem. She had about five procedures ordered.

[klone, MSN, RN]

One in 20? Yeah, I'd say that's about normal. It's not uncommon for me to call the hospital on my cell on my drive home from work, remembering something I forgot to tell the nurse I gave report to.

[Ariyala]

If its a hospital, it's a 24 hour/7 day a week job. I'm not one to put things off & say "oh, the next shift can do it" (I hate saying that and leaving for the next shift) but sometimes you have to. And that includes things you forgot to do. Like Klone, I have called back up to work on my way home to tell them something. :)

[firstyearstudent]

Yeah, but the problem was it was supposed to be done before the end of the shift because of the chemo later...

[Moogie]

May I ask how long you have been working in your current job? Are you still in school or have you been out and working for a while?

[nursecms]

nobody walks on water. doesn't matter how long you have been practicing :). i would suggest that after 6-8 hours into your shift, if you are working 12, to go through the physician order section in the chart and check to make sure that there aren't any new orders and the ones that were written have been processed and documented. do this again before you give report to the next nurse. i always flip through the mar and kardex to make sure the meds were given, signed and initialed.

[firstyearstudent]

I've been practicing for three years. Most of the time I'm on top of this stuff, but some shifts you can just get so tangled up in minutae that you lose sight of the big picture (or am I wrong about this?). I don't know.

Maybe what I should do is, after getting report and before passing meds go through all the procedures that are supposed to be done and get on the phones and make sure all the departments have the patient on the schedule and what time.

I just kept expecting them to come do the echo and they didn't and I didn't catch on until change of shift. This was also the weekend and the department may not have even been staffed...

Anyway, even if I don't forget something I always feel like there is too much for me to juggle and remember. I make obsessive checklists but maybe I'm just too absent minded.

[LifelongDream]

You need to realize that there are others that are responsible for checking that the procedures are done as well. It is rarely one person's fault. It usually the fault of several people. Rarely does someone enter this profession with the intention of making their patients worse. Instead of focusing on how you screwed up, focus on how you patients were better at the end of the shift.