Making mistakes lowers my confidence at job-New Grad RN

[newsupernurse]

I am a new grad RN and have completed 12 weeks at the job but when I make mistakes, my confidence goes down the drain. I go by my time management sheet, I recheck meds twice and try to do complete documentation as the day passes by. One day I took ou the Antibiotic but forgot to start the bag, the other day I charted narcotics on my narrative but failed to chart on medication chart and most of all I gave BP med to patient whose systolic BP was less than 100 and it was only 99 ( this pt had 3 pages of medications). It scares the hell out of me when I realize that once my nurse residency gets over, I won't hv my preceptor watching over me.:confused:

[whatsmyusername_RN]

Guess what? I've been doing this two years and every once in a while that stuff happens to me too (and to my coworkers - I've gone in and found the abx bag still clamped off, or I know someone got their meds and the RN forgot to sign the MAR) - and to compound it further I'm now in the military!

I'm very hard on myself as well. Don't be so hard - it only makes you feel worse.

We've all done this and we'll continue to do it. Does that make it less of a problem? No. It makes us human.

Slow down. Take a deep breath. Don't worry about what might happen tomorrow, just go in thinking you'll do better. Learn from your little mistakes because it will stop you from making bigger ones.

Once, when I'd been off preceptorship for about two weeks, I hung a piggyback backwards. What made it worse was it was chemo! I went in and fessed to my manager and told her how I'd prevent it from happening again (the next few bags I hung I got an RN to go in behind me under the guise of "checking something" for me so the pt wouldn't know I was checking my own work). Guess what - I didn't do it again.

Just a few weeks ago, I missed a potassium replacement order. Was it life or death? No, thank God - but fairly enough I got written up for it. Before my boss even knew about it, I went straight to her office, told her what I did (or in this case, didn't!), and told her how I'd prevent that from happening again. And I've been much more careful and have been successful in my correction.

My point here is learn from your mistakes. Don't beat yourself up. You're human, and you're learning. Even the most experienced RNs on this board don't know everything - we're ALL learning, to a degree. You'll do fine. The fact that you're acknowledging your errors speaks loudly for you. You are, whether you see it or not, learning from them.

Hang in there. :)

I feel pretty ***** when I make mistakes, so it's good to know that even the more experienced nurses also make mistakes.