Made my first mistake

[cristinam96, BSN, RN]

Hey y’all. The other day was my first day on my own off orientation, I work at a busy ER. I was disconnecting a patients port tubing from their antibiotics and I accidentally took off the INT cap from the tubing and didn’t clamp the tubing. Placed an antiseptic green cap, but patient’s tubing bleed around the cap and ended up becoming clotted. Needed to be reaccessed which there was no problem with. No complications other than minor bleeding, however I am worried about the fact that the tubing was an “open line” aka contaminated for a few minutes. I am so anxious about the whole thing and I’m starting to feel incompetent. I’ve been reassured by everyone that it is no big deal and I’ve learned from my mistake. Am I overreacting?

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

On 7/1/2020 at 7:20 AM, cristinam96 said:

I’ve been reassured by everyone that it is no big deal and I’ve learned from my mistake. Am I overreacting?

Welcome to nursing. 99.99% of nurses have make a stupid mistake in their first year as a nurse and the other 0.01% are lying if they say they never made a stupid mistake. Hopefully, you learned your lesson to be more diligent when you are performing tasks. This mistake may save you from making another stupid mistake that actually effected a patient seriously.