Med error

Published

Okay I'm a brandnew LVN. One month experience. First job at AL. Lastnight I made a horrible mistake. I gave two 100mg tablets of Quetiapine. The emar said two 50mg tablets. So the bubble pack only said one 100mg tab. I take full responsibility for not going through with my 7 rights. I checked vitals sighs. My boss notified physician and I did an incident report. The doctor wants to see him in his office sometime this week for EKG. His vital signs today are wnl. He's walking around and participating in activities. I feel so stupid and guilty and depressed. I'm questioning if I should even be Nurse. I'm wondering if I can lose my license. I just need some advice. I'm a total mess right now

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As a charge one night I had to call our facility's medical director because one of my coworkers on the Alzheimer's unit had left meds including Quetiapine in a cup on top of her cart and rushed away to stop a resident from falling. Another resident, who ambulated independently, walked over and took the pills. I remember the doc laughed, asked for the vitals, and said not to worry, she will probably sleep well tonight if anything. You learned a good lesson and hopefully the patient will be fine.

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Specializes in Peds, School Nurse, clinical instructor.

Lesson learned! Always do your rights of medication administration. No, you won't lose your license. Yes you should be a nurse!

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Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.

No you will not lose your license.Take that worry off your plate by going to your state's licensing board and check out why nurses actually do lose their licenses.Next get the error into perspective and realize no harm came to the patient.The most important thing is to not waste time on useless quilt and use your time to examine why the error occurred and what will you do differently to avoid similar errors going forward.Please share what you discovered and what you will do differently. Give yourself permission to learn from your mistakes and stop feeling bad because you will be a better nurse in the long run

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It's the worst feeling ever, but you will get through it and be a better nurse because if it. Keep your head up!

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Specializes in PCU, Critical Care, Observation.

It happens to the best of us, but I'm sure it won't happen again. Let the guilty feeling go. You're not a robot, you're human & the patient is fine.

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if you ever run into a nurse with any time under their belt and they tell you that they have NEVER made a med error (remember, even missing a dose or giving a med late is an error) Don't believe them! We are all human. Take your time, remember your rights of med administration and try to not get distracted during med passes (yeah, good luck with that!) You will gain confidence with time

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You sound like the kind of person I would want as my nurse

1. You took responsibility, and identified ways to prevent this in the future (the 7 rights)

2. You notified the proper people, and escalated care

3. You are not mentioning extraneous details (EG staffing, training, how hard the night was)

4. You expressed concern for your patient before admitting your own fears

5. You are not minimizing your error by saying something like "It was just double the dose, not a whole different medication"

All this speaks very highly of you, your work ethic, and your ability to safely practice

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