Made a mistake!!

Please tell me I am not the only one who has goofed up.

You're kidding, right?

There isn't a single nurse who hasn't made at least one major error in his/her career by the time it's over. As long as you learn from it, then there is a positive to come out of it. You'll never make this mistake again, right?

Glad there was not a bad out come. I know I have made med errors before. Learn and move on , thats all you can do.

Know you are not alone. We are human.

Sure as the sun's going to rise in the morning, there will be med errors made by solid nurses.

learn from this, which of the 5 rights was the mistake,

and try so it won't happen again

Yes I have had it happen as well. My best advice is try to figure out why it happened, Is there something you can personally change or is it a system problem. I fit is a system problem come up with a solution and present it to your manager. I can not tell you how many problems I have solved by looking at flaws in the system. It is OK you will be a better nurse if you learn from it!!!!

To err is human. To med err when you're coming off your 3rd understaffed 12 hour shift in a row is nursing.:heartbeat

Keep your head up. We've all made med errors and those who push their chests out and boast that they've NEVER are either storytelling or well on their way to their first. Learn from it, embrace it, and move on.

Like all the others have said, we've all made errors. Hopefully, we don't make the same errors twice- that's the best we can hope for!

Cheer up. You're certainly NOT the only one who's goofed up. :)

Assuming that what you charted was an overdose of this med, then every nurse that gave it was wrong also.

technically, it's not only your error - others who followed you do a check, and it seems it was missed there also, so don't be too hard on yourself.

easier said than done, i know

Mistakes have, do, and will happen. It's an unfortunate truth. Fortunately, this one did not result in a terrible situation. You will now be more vigilant when it comes to your meds and orders. That to me is a great outcome.

Quick story.

I was working per diem in a LTAC. I had a pt one night that was to get 500mg of some bp med (forget which, I just remember the 5 100mg tabs I had to pull). His wife was there and refused the meds, stating that it was too much, it wasn't what he was taking at home, she didn't know why the doc had changed it. His bp was a little elevated, and I did push for him to at least take the dose he took at home (300mg), and she agreed to that (he let her do all the talking and make decisions for those of you wondering. Sure you've met that kind before).

Anyway, that night, I did my chart checks. Mind you, this was my first time w/ this pt, and he had already been there for close to 5 weeks. His original admit order said 500mg, then the next day, the doc came in and lowered it to 300mg. The order was stamped that it had been sent to pharmacy, but it was never corrected. I wrote up every person that for five weeks, 2 times a day, gave the wrong dose, and wrote up pharmacy as well. I showed the DON the next morning all the write-ups, told her I really didn't want to write anyone up, I did it more for show, so she could see how bad that one error was.

This resulted in a new policy that each shift is to do a chart check (as only night shift was doing chart checks), and the orders will be checked by offgoing/oncoming nurse when giving report.