Messy-sloppy MAR's!!

Dude, I am saying... I have never worked a day of my career as a nurse on the floor. Now, I am spending all my time on the floor as an allied health student, and the MAR's are a disaster at every hospital I have rotated through thus far.

:spbox: Ok, I will admit I may be a wee bit OCD; however, when it comes to medications, the med room and the MAR's, don't you think they should be kept neat and orderly? Evidently this is not a concern to my co-workers! I was taught (back in the stone age) that when you DC a med/tx etc. on the MAR you block out the remaining days of that month COMPLETELY in whatever color your facility uses (we use yellow highlighter here) and write the date, "DC'd" or "Dose change" and sign or initial.

Day after day I come back from days off and when I sign out my meds I find a DC'd med with a couple of blocks yellowed out, no notation that it was DC'd...NOTHING! I find scribbles and cross outs from mistakes, you name it, if it's messy, it's in our MAR's!!:hdvwl:

Should I seek therapy and medication for my OCD or am I being reasonable in expecting nurses to have a semblance of neatness? ...Thanks for reading...I needed to vent.

OK, I'm glad I'm not the only person who freaks out over this. All of my coworkers act like it's no big deal.

Is it too much to ask to actually DC a med rather than just cross out the new dosage and write it in tiny numbers above?? Oh, that is if the dosage is even written on the MAR. Sometimes people just list the med. It makes it a nightmare trying to pass meds on a unit I'm not used to!!

I agree with you op. my pet peeve is not discarding d/cd meds.

Good thing we have CERNER!

But I have to agree with the OP, with my last hospital everything in the MAR is messy. And there had been occasions that a dc'd medication had been given because nobody cared to cross out the whole boxes..!

ohhhh, thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! maybe this means i really am normal??? lol!

caliotter3...you are correct with that observation. i am the one that they ask to organize stuff though, "because you are so organized"....well this girl is tired of cleaning up their messes! no more i say!

just putting "dcd" is not enough....the date and if the dose was changed that needs to be there as well....and "see below" helps......i ran across a B12 dose that was missed for SEVEN MONTHS, because all the person put was dcd, not dose changed, see below.......

ohhhh, thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! maybe this means i really am normal??? lol!

this was exactly my thought when i read your post haha

As someone who's going to end up reviewing and analyzing a million different types of medical records in a couple of years, I'm here to say I'm GLAD there are "OCD" people like you all in the world! Major mistakes can (and often will) result from sloppy notation and record-keeping. If you want to take good care of your patients, for heaven's sake, make sure your notes are clear and thorough!

So celticwoman61, IMO you aren't crazy - you're just doing a good job!! Thanks!

I agree with you op. my pet peeve is not discarding d/cd meds.

This one is mine, the dosage strength for the Coumadin patients is constantly changing and the other nurses just put the new box in the drawer or worse turn the old box upside down ( you've got your hand on the box just take it out!)