Med error in nursing school!

Lola89, LPN, LVN · Feb 5, 2011

I am also a student, you probably want to hear from experience nurses. But these are my thoughts. You got your med error over with! They say that everyone makes mistakes, if you haven't then you wonder when it will be your turn. This was your turn and it is over. It sounds like you followed protocol as a student by asking your instructor and giving the reasoning. Don't want to place blame on your instructor but he/she should have double checked you.

The fact that you feel guilty and realized what you could have done differently, will make you a great nurse!

AnaCatRN · Feb 5, 2011

Many facilities have 0600 meds on the night shift MAR. No harm was done, and your instructor didn't catch it, either. It was a good learning lesson for you, and I doubt you'll ever make that mistake again. Every nurse eventually makes a med error, and we all feel horrible when it happens. What you're feeling is perfectly normal. Don't beat yourself up over it. Just remember not to ever assume anything in the future. That you worry about errors and feel bad tells me that you can be a safe nurse. I'd be more worried if you didn't. Stay positive and learn from your mistakes. You can do this!

thinkertdm · Feb 5, 2011

When you were learning to walk, you fell down. But you didn't stop trying to walk, did you?

There are a couple of points to remember:

1. It's nursing school. That's why you are there. To learn. Sometimes the lessons are going to be harsh, and will hurt your ego. But it will make you stronger.

2. Think about what you learned, and learn from it. When I was little, my mom told me that iron was hot. "Don't touch it!" she said. What did I do? I touched it, and holy cow, I now know to listen to my mom. And that irons are hot.

3. It seems like the problem here isn't your knowledge of nursing, but your lack of self-confidence.

4. Unless you are a robot, you will make mistakes. That can only be reduced by learning from the previous one. You are probably thinking "what if next time it was something bad, like a double dose of insulin?" Well, it seems to me that you have a golden opportunity to make sure there isn't a next time by learning from this one.

Rebaracer · Feb 5, 2011

We all make mistakes in our nursing career...I have made med errors as well, although not serious ones, it makes you question your ability as a nurse. The important thing to understand is that just because you made an error doesnt mean you are a terrible nurse..it happens and when it does we learn from our mistakes. Your instructor was there for your guidance when you needed it and maybe should have looked into things a little deeper before giving you advice. Now if this medicine would have been a narcotic or one requiring closer monitoring, as a nurse you would have most likely yourself looked longer and harder. Med errors in nursing are inevitable and many factors contribute to why they happen. In a facility where I work the pharmacy mislabeled a hydromorphone vial as a morphine vial (it was actually the box they came in so the vials were correctly labeled) the nurse was in a hurry...meant to give the morphine but in actuality gave the hydromorphone (which we know is significantly stronger)...another time when I was in nursing school a fellow classmate and the instructor were preparing to give a pallaitive client morphine...they both double checked the dose before the student gave it...it wasnt until the next dose was due that the student realized they had given 10 times the prescribed dose! I am not trying to play down the importance or seriousness of medication errors, I just want you to know that it does happen and you just need to take responsibilty for it, learn from it and move on.

kakamegamama · Feb 5, 2011

Cut yourself some slack. You made a mistake, and as another poster said, it was bound to happen at some point. Yours is over :). You will probably be very careful from here on out, and will do fine. Don't beat up on yourself. Congratulations on this last semester of nursing school. You've worked hard to get to this point and I'm sure will be a very good nurse. Hang in there. Learn from this and keep on keeping on.

Old.Timer · Feb 5, 2011

Again, not to minimize, but it's part of the learning curve. Anyone who says they haven't made a med error is either not telling the truth or not even aware that they made an error.

You do what you've already done and that is to review how it happened and what you could have done differently to prevent it from occuring and carry the lesson forward with you.

Always be especially dilligent with regard to normal dose ranges and patient allergies as most of your devastating med errors will usually involve an error in one of those two areas.

General E. Speaking, RN, RN · Feb 5, 2011

Just learn from it. Don't beat yourself up. We are human and not perfect. We've all been there. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and keep on going.

Rnis, BSN, DNP, APRN, NP · Feb 5, 2011

The reason med errors and incident reports are reported is so that we can learn from them, it sounds like yo have.

MomRN0913 · Feb 5, 2011

I agree, learn from it. But the advice of the other posters, that "you got your med error out of the way" is actually unrealistic too. There will probably be more. We are human. One error in your whole nursing career and at the beginning is not likely. And to the nurses who believe they have only made one their whole career....odds are probably pretty good you have made more and don't even know it.

If there are more, please don't beat yourself up so hard. I am the master of beating myself up over med errors. They are stressul and we want to help peple and the though of harming them is so scary. But if it wasnt for the nurses, who are humans, patients wouldn't be gettng any care at all!

nicx778 · Feb 5, 2011

Despite what my fellow nurses are saying, I have to say that this was just poor nurse-man-ship on your part. You must learn that even if somebody tells you something is okay and you think it is, you must always check again to make sure. Yes, nursing errors are common, but that doesn't mean you should make them and just dismiss it as something that happened. Learn from it, as said above, but also let it affect you so that you know that it's NOT okay to do it again. Now, as for your instructor, you know as well as the next male nurse, that the instructor must be there with you as you administer the drug. Next time, make sure you really follow protocol and have your instructor there with you -- instead of being a macho man and feeling like the big nurse on campus who gets to give the drugs without an instructor being present.

Also I would suggest you strive to not make a med error, despite how common the mommy above me suggests they are. Yes, they are common. Yes, people make more than one. Does that mean you should just accept it and 'learn from it' because it made you feel bad? How about the patient? Obviously the synthroid isn't going to that, but somewhere down the line you might do something that will hurt them. And then 'beating yourself up' over it might be the right thing to do. Listen, nursing is a hard job. Some people just aren't cut out for it. Sometimes you have to become a scrub nurse because you can't handle the floor. That's the reality.

sparklie.lady · Feb 5, 2011

Not sure, what being a male nurse has to do with anything, but as seniors in my program, we can administer PO and injectable meds on our own, after the instructor has reviewed the MAR with us.

That goes for the female nurses, too :twocents: