medical error injection

[jennifer009]

Hello I am new here and sorta new in the field.. I was supposed to give a patient an injection and gave a PPD medication instead of the flu vaccine and then i didnt realize it again on another patient! Both patients had bigger arms..but only one i was aware when the patient was still in the office! The dr said they she will be ok. So i reported one instead of both. my friends say she should be ok.. but i still have a bad feeling, besides the fact i messed up.

[edimo]

You should of just not said anything ... I'm sure they are not going to die over an I'm injection of PPD..lol...you have to cover your own behind or it's gonna be a long hard road. Do follow six rights and double check what your drawing up ...just my own opinion

That's a slippery slope you're on...one day you're omitting information to patients and the next you're doing who knows what.

We are professionally obligated to self report or report on others when there's been a clear incident involving patient safety...receiving wrong medication definitely falls within that category

[BostonRN13]

You should of just not said anything ... I'm sure they are not going to die over an I'm injection of PPD..lol...you have to cover your own behind or it's gonna be a long hard road. Do follow six rights and double check what your drawing up ...just my own opinion

Please tell me that my loved ones or I NEVER end up with a nurse like this taking care of us. As for OP 'fess up move on and always triple check yourself..

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Hello I am new here and sorta new in the field.. I was supposed to give a patient an injection and gave a PPD medication instead of the flu vaccine and then i didnt realize it again on another patient! Both patients had bigger arms..but only one i was aware when the patient was still in the office! The dr said they she will be ok. So i reported one instead of both. my friends say she should be ok.. but i still have a bad feeling, besides the fact i messed up.

What do "bigger arms" have to do with administering the wrong medicaton?

You have a patient who thinks they got the flu vaccine and didn't. You MUST report this immediately.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

You should of just not said anything ... I'm sure they are not going to die over an I'm injection of PPD..lol...you have to cover your own behind or it's gonna be a long hard road. Do follow six rights and double check what your drawing up ...just my own opinion

First, it's should have not should of. And second, you can't be serious. Covering up a mistake is, IMO, worse than the actual mistake itself. There is a patient who believes he/she received the flu vaccine and didn't. This patient needs to be notified so he/she can be vaccinated.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I'm thinking minimally-trained office staff --"new in the field" and "big arms" ??- and clueless about medication administration. And her friend too. OP, hallooo? Can you confirm or deny?

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Intersting.

[Pink Magnolia, BSN, RN]

I hope this is a joke because you are breaking basic ethical principles that I'm currently learning in my BSN program: veracity (you want to keep quiet), non-maleficene (you harmed your patient by not following the 6 rights and 3 checks), respect (you don't respect the patient or his wellbeing if you don't fess up), and autonomy (the patient made a choice to get the flu shot, and he thinks he got one)!

[OCNRN63, RN]

Hello I am new here and sorta new in the field.. I was supposed to give a patient an injection and gave a PPD medication instead of the flu vaccine and then i didnt realize it again on another patient! Both patients had bigger arms..but only one i was aware when the patient was still in the office! The dr said they she will be ok. So i reported one instead of both. my friends say she should be ok.. but i still have a bad feeling, besides the fact i messed up.

At the risk of being a "nurse eater"

1. You made the same mistake twice?

2. After you realized the mistake, you falsified your documentation and failed to report both mistakes?

I don't know which scares me more. You could lose your license for failing to report the error and trying to cover it up. Don't do that again! Always, always, always follow your 5 rights. Everyone makes mistakes; it's what they do after the mistake is made that shows if they've learned.

​You may lose your job for it, but I would report the second error. The next time, you may not get so lucky.

[OCNRN63, RN]

It's ok because her friend told her she'd probably be ok.

What happens if the patient who thought she got the influenza vacc. gets the flu and gets seriously ill? Sure, probably won't happen, but you never know. Agree with you; best to report it.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Um, Didnt say i used a tb needle. i used an IM NEEDLE 25 REGULAR NEEDLE. I JUST mistook the medication.

​No, you didn't just mistake the medication; you gave the wrong med twice, then covered over the second one by not reporting it. How is that patient going to have protection from the flu? Do you not see how unethical hiding the mistake is?

[OCNRN63, RN]

You should of just not said anything ... I'm sure they are not going to die over an I'm injection of PPD..lol...you have to cover your own behind or it's gonna be a long hard road. Do follow six rights and double check what your drawing up ...just my own opinion

Another example of "not getting the big picture."

[RNlove17]

I'm still kind of confused... so you gave PPD IM instead of the flu vax? Is that what I'm understanding? I don't get why you wouldn't report both when it happened unless the 2nd one was awhile after the 1st and you didn't want to "get in trouble" for making the same mistake twice. The thing is, that patient, and everyone else, thinks they are vax'ed against influenza and theyre not. Need to report!