looking to learn from life lessons

[LilpoRN]

I am a new RN working in a Surgical ICU. It is a very intimidating job for a new nurse. Fortunately I work with many experienced RN's who have been through and seen a lot in their careers. I love hearing their stories of mistakes they, or someone they knew made in nursing, I think they are a very valuable learning tool for a new nurse. I am anxious to hear more stories! I'm sure there are many out there to learn from. Please post a story you personally experienced or heard about that really made you say "wow, I'll never do that again", or "That should have been done this way". This will be very helpful to me and all new nurses!

[Quilter0225]

This story makes me feel better about my mistakes. It's one of those OMG-I-would-NEVER-do-that! stories. My sister-in-law (a nurse) told me about when her mother was a brand new nurse 27 years ago. Her biggest mistake was that the heparin bags looked a lot like the NS bags. She accidentally hung heparin at a fluid rate!!! Fortunately the doctor walked in shortly thereafter and caught it. Believe it or not she didn't get fired. Hope this makes you feel that your mistakes aren't so bad!:grn:

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

We had a surgeon (who I'll call "dr. death" for obvious reasons) that was the most dangerous guy I'd ever seen. I was in school, doing an OR rotation, and watched this guy sew up a bowel resection pt with the OR nurse telling him she was missing a sponge. I mean, we're all looking for it, (even little student me, who was getting everyone to pick up their shoes and looking to see if someone had stepped on it). The surgeon wouldn't stop sewing the guy up. The OR nurse sent someone out to get the OR nursing supervisor, who practically had to grab the surgeon's hands to make him stop. He ripped back into the pt, cussing out the nurse and saying she couldn't count....and voila! missing sponge was snuggled up to the guy's spleen. The surgeon in question was finally "asked" to leave when a pt was found to have a pair of surgical scissors left inside of her -- and dr. death was arguing that the scissors had been left by "another surgeon." Hello, ya think you would have noticed that on the pre-op xray/CT, wouldn't ya....? Turns out he'd brow beat the nurse on that surgery, who told him her count was off, until she finally thought she HAD miss counted, and didn't want to cause a "fuss." He got "asked" to leave, the nurse got fired, and the patient got dead because the pointy end apparently stabbed the abdominal aorta...

If your count's off, DON'T LET THEM SEW UP THE PT! Stand your ground.

[RedhairedNurse, BSN, RN]

Be very careful with needle sticks and splashes. I had my first stick in nursing school. Thank God everything turned out alright. However, I'm actually glad it happened because it made me much more cautious about these things now.

Most occupational injuries are with splashes rather than needle sticks.

I actually learned that this morning. Just be very careful about everything,

very, very careful! Never get in a hurry when dealing with blood or body fluids. Some one told me that they where glasses instead of

contacts just to offer some sort of protection for the eyes.

Even some of the most simple things that you would never guess could

happen or cause injury to the nurse can and do happen.