Medication Error - 53 is this for me

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  1. Have you ever mixed up insulin pens before and used the wrong pen on the wrong patient?

    • 6
      Yes
    • 48
      No

54 members have participated

I am a 53 yr. old new grad and just began a substitute school nurse position. I made a medication error and have to go into to talk to the superintendent about it. I used another student's insulin pen to give insulin to a student, unknowingly. Student is fine. Will I get fired for this? I was excited about the possibility of making this a career...Love the kids, schedule and laid back atmosphere. Anyone ever mixed up unlabeled insulin pens before? Should I hang it up and go back to interior design????

Thank you onedayitllbeme, flying scot and capecodmermaid. Let the chips fall where they may. I've done my best.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Would you want your child injected with a pen that could be contaminated by another child? Y'all make it sound like this is nothing. Read the studies on insulin pens....blood can contaminate the pen and when you use it on a different person....
I get it but I would be raging at the policies that don't require identification/labeling of meds!
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Specializes in Rehabilitation,Critical Care.

"Nobody's perfect." Learn from this one mistake and move on.

Next time, even if in a rush, DO YOUR 6 RIGHTS!

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Specializes in Emergency Dept.

I'm glad someone brought up that this is more than a med error where the child was okay from the medication. It is also an exposure - so insisting the child is find without the follow up is not necessarily accurate. There are going to be repercussions - the original owner of the pen needs a new one because of the cross contamination (which insurance may not cover), the kid who received the wrong injection will need a workup similar to a needle stick injury (although the risks are very low, they are still there). Has someone brought that up to the parents or had them seek the advice of their physician?

Having said that - this whole situation seems like a terrible system failure that needs addressed. No, I don't think you should quit nursing or your school nursing job. There will be a fine line when addressing the powers that be between accepting responsibility for your actions while indicating the other failures within the system that lead to the error. No labeling will lead to further errors - especially if you are no longer there and it is someone who has not gone through this experience. You have certainly learned from your experience and while non-nursing individuals may be deciding your fate for working at the school - I hope that they can see that the SYSTEM needs changed to help protect the safety of the students.

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OP, what happened?

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I resigned and found a great position at a large multi specialty medical practice. :-)

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