Med error on orientation

3 Posts

I'm a new grad working in a LTC facility--it's my last night of 5 days of orientation and I basically have 25 patients to myself. It's about 6:30 and I still haven't finished my 5 oclock med pass, so I'm rushing. Walk into a patient's room, and hand the pills to the bed by the door, with a quick "here you go [wrong name]". He takes the pills, I walk back out and realize that those pills (and the name attatched to them) were for THE PATIENT BY THE WINDOW. I dont know if he didnt hear me say the name, but HOLY CRAP. Ran to get my preceptor, and the unit manager. THey both shrug their shoulders, look at what I gave him, and decide to deal with it later. In the meantime, I am near tears and pretty sure that I'm going to vomit.

Later that night, the unit manager pulls me into the office, and I'm pretty sure I'm about to get fired. Instead, she tells me everyone makes mistakes, and that the drugs I gave him were no big deal, so if I was ok with it, the whole thing would be forgotten. I agreed to this, but...

OMG. I feel so sick.