Made my first med error

[Tinkers33]

I made my first medication error on Thursday. The patient is ok, my co-workers have been very supportive telling me it happens to all of us, but I feel horrible!!! Have any of you done this before? How do you get your confidence back up and not feel like a horrible nurse/person?

[quiltynurse56, LPN, LVN]

Yes, I have done this before as well as many others. I think the first few are the ones that hit you hardest. After all, we were told over and over in school that it is the worse thing we can do, or at least I heard that.

Take this med error, figure out how it happened, make necessary changes and move forward. It is a learning experience and you will learn from it.

You get your confidence back up by going back and making your med pass, taking what you learned from the error to do better.

[Leonardsmom,LPN]

Take this med error, figure out how it happened, make necessary changes and move forward. It is a learning experience and you will learn from it.

You get your confidence back up by going back and making your med pass, taking what you learned from the error to do better.

This here is great advice. At some point all of us will make a medication error in our career. The other night I came close to making one myself and had almost pulled a Med that had been scheduled and given earlier in the day. The place I am currently working at still uses paper charting and a paper MAR, my experience with clinicals has been with an EMAR which shows in an organized fashion what meds are due when. I caught my near mistake and from that knew that I needed to be more conscious in my scheduled times and meds making sure that I am paying attention to the military time that is used in our records.

Learn from what had led to your Med error and use it to improve yourself as a nurse.

[NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN]

You would be hard-pressed to find a medication nurse who goes an entire year, sometimes a month, without a med error. In this age of customer service, I've experienced being too busy serving the customers to even begin my Med pass until after that one-hour window had passed. So, every single Med I gave that night was a med error. When I spoke with the manager about it, her response was "if enough patients complain, maybe they'll get us some help around here". I didn't like it; none of my patients were hurt; but it is a reality. One can only perform the due diligence as best he/she can medication-wise when graham crackers and cups of ice for the second cousin's step-granddaughter takes precedence over titrating or holding a hearing drip. (Though an exaggeration, this example is not far from the realm).

Imagine having the above or similar scenario for 5 of your 6 patients' families. The rush to play catch-up (after appeasing all those that refused to stop by the grocery store on their way to see Cousin Ben because Cousin Ben has spread the word that you can have it your way and the hospital pantry has an endless supply of whatever) will cause the best of the best nurses to pull and administer the wrong medication (if no barcoding/scanning system is used);and forget to split a pill in half (thereby administering twice the prescribed amount) even with all the proper systems in place.

All that being said, whatever error you made, don't do that again. And the next one that you will make, don't do that one again either. Strive for perfection but recognize that contrary to popular belief, nurses are only mere human beings (the nerve of us!) who don't know it all. Double and triple check yourself and then have someone to check behind you....whenever that option is available. Chin up and keep learning.

[NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN]

You would be hard-pressed to find a medication nurse who goes an entire year, sometimes a month, without a med error. In this age of customer service, I've experienced being too busy serving the customers to even begin my Med pass until after that one-hour window had passed. So, every single Med I gave that night was a med error. When I spoke with the manager about it, her response was "if enough patients complain, maybe they'll get us some help around here". I didn't like it; none of my patients were hurt; but it is a reality. One can only perform the due diligence as best he/she can medication-wise when graham crackers and cups of ice for the second cousin's step-granddaughter takes precedence over titrating or holding a hearing drip. (Though an exaggeration, this example is not far from the realm).

Imagine having the above or similar scenario for 5 of your 6 patients' families. The rush to play catch-up (after appeasing all those that refused to stop by the grocery store on their way to see Cousin Ben because Cousin Ben has spread the word that you can have it your way and the hospital pantry has an endless supply of whatever) will cause the best of the best nurses to pull and administer the wrong medication (if no barcoding/scanning system is used);and forget to split a pill in half (thereby administering twice the prescribed amount) even with all the proper systems in place.

All that being said, whatever error you made, don't do that again. And the next one that you will make, don't do that one again either. Strive for perfection but recognize that contrary to popular belief, nurses are only mere human beings (the nerve of us!) who don't know it all. Double and triple check yourself and then have someone to check behind you....whenever that option is available. Chin up and keep learning.

Autocorrect at is best! That should have read 'heparin drip' instead of "hearing drip" in the 1st paragraph.

[DaniloDaniels]

It happens , especially when you got 40+ people to medicate at a Convelescent Hospital. I mean it's not like you intentionally gave them the wrong med. you're only human, move on