My vent and What I will learn from it?

[SmilesNoir]

I am starting LVN school next week. I went to the doctors office to tie up my last vaccination. There is a new Medical Assistant,MA, (older woman)being trained by a young MA. The young MA had drawn the vaccination. This was out of my sight. The new MA comes in and give me the shot. One, The new MA would not put the safety device on the needle as she transport to the sharps bin. It came too close. Also she did not let alcohol dry naturally. Vaccine had burned @ injection. uggh!

I asked for proof of the shot. I run my errands and return home. As I am walking up the steps. I noticed, Immunization Admission Report says www.gardasil.com. ***** I dont believe in this vaccination. I just knew this was a typo. I called the dr's office and left a message .. hey! Ya'll made a mistake!

*ring.. ring* Hello! It's my Dr. I'm thinking, Why is she calling me?

Dr Says: Oh Smiles! I'm so sorry .. we really gave Gardasil. No you could not have gave me Gardasil.. ***** Smiles, we need you to come in to get your chxpox shot.. Are you *bleep bleep bleep * Serious! So I'm going off about the evils of Gardasil. She said I gave my daughter this shot.. My response: So! In the 60's or early 70's Do you remember the drug that it was given to pregnant moms for nausea. It made the daughters sterile. I would not want to do that to a chile. Gardasil is not needed ..

I did not realise Garadasil was 3 shot series. What's happens to me? I only got 1 out of 3. I read,folks were having side effects

I get back to Dr office. Dr is all calm and tries to convince me that I'm ok.. I said Yeah If I turn into the Fly or Zombie.. or dead.. I'm sure I'm ok.. So i cant convince you that you were not harmed by this shot, she asks.. NO! I said. The Dr also told me that Both MA's were highly skilled. When a vaccine incident is made the whole office feel bad. (I hope this is a rarity) Smiles, I do not think you are harmed by the vaccine.., The Dr says again. Smiles, my most educated patient should not believe everything on the internet or blah blah said the Dr. I looked at her with a death stare.

I'm not paying for the Garasil or chixpox shot. either. My Garasil arm hurt for 2 days. Tylenol was no help.

The new MA comes in.. No apologies..and ask for my arm.. She shows me the vial to prove its chixpox shot , give me the shot and blood is running down my arm from the injection. MA cleans it up. I had to tell her that she is to put on the safety device per transporting it to the sharps. Also, I asked her to let the alcohol to dry before injection. So it would not burn. Why did she blow on my arm? So where is the sterilization again?

I guess I had so too many points.. She finally ask me, Who are you? What are you? I said I'm a patient who has had phlebotomy training and one who reads and writes presidents of medical groups and hospitals .

She says oh!

The young MA was hiding per the checkout patient rep..

So I'm looking for a new dr.

What I have learn from this experience?

Yes, Folks are human. BUT, 2 pairs of eyes should have looked at the vial. So, they should have recheck the script.

When a patient comes in questioning a situation. I will not blow her off. If she or he wants to see the needle pulled from a new wrapping.. I will show up.

I will try my best to look at the script twice.

Is there anything else that I should have learned from this experience?

[ktwlpn, LPN]

Originally Posted by nursel56

But here's the weirdest part of it. The nurse who mixed up the vials was the one who told me about it!! She was still working there. 2 of us worked in the "shot room" of a ginormous multi-specialty clinic, all shots all the time! She casually mentioned one day that she switched the vials and the guy died ! Surreal. I mean what are you supposed to say?? Umm. ..

Just in case anybody asks, yes we showed them their allergy serum mixtures before we drew them up. Don't know what happened.

She said the clinic was sued, she wasn't. We didn't follow a protocol of waiting for alcohol to dry naturally or hold the needle in place for 10 seconds. If we did, they would have had to hire more people.

------Quote-OP

When you are a nurse you will make your share of mistakes and hopefully NOT loose YOUR job over them. Med errors are investigated and often are the result of a system breakdown. If no harm occurs to the patient in most cases the staff is absolved of any wrong doing after counseling. If you aquire a pattern of making mistakes out of carelessness then you are in for trouble. Even in the worst case scenario when a patient has a negative outcome unless you are known to be an idiot with a "don't give a shyte" attitude you won't get fired.

After you make your first one please revisit this thread and tell us how YOU feel. Most of us beat ourselves up over our mistakes-we are NOT laughing over it at happy hour,I assure you.

You have learned that every mistake is POTENTIALLY harmful and each patient involved deserves to be taken seriously. You have also learned that your doctor thinks that you are an orifice and has no respect for you.

Before you get on your high horse again let me tell you about just one of the medical errors I have been the victim of- my doc called me in and proceeded to tell me I had advanced metastatic cancer. April Fool! Wrong patient-not my test results...Consider that both of my parents died of cancer at relatively young ages. I thought I was going to collapse right there in his office-(had an out of body experince right there) but I got over it and I have no lasting ill effects. It was not a pleasant experince by any stretch-but because my doctor and I had a mutually respectful relationship he actually dealt with the radiology dept involved and the head of that dept did loose her job.I did not flip out on my doctor and act like a fool.Together we discussed the situation and figured out what had happened and he followed through.Maybe your manner was the problem between yourself and your doc.

[LovebugLPN]

What is a B.O.B.?

[ktwlpn, LPN]

"battery operated boyfriend"?

[nursel56]

QUOTE=BluegrassRN;4192154]I think it's GREAT that she shared her error with you. It appears to have made an impact, and you are extra careful because of it. I'm guessing that she still faced some action from the Board; perhaps she had to take some sort of class, or practice with supervision, etc. Even if she didn't, she's sharing her mistake with others, probably in the hopes you take care when giving injections.

Oh, I know. I agree 100%. I remember every one of these, no matter who makes the error. In my first year at a pediatric hospital, the nurse working in the room with me gave an infant epinephrine 10x the correct dose- she was a fabulous nurse. I'll never forget the red face and controlled panic in her face as she took his vitals over and over. This was before all of it was done electronically, even though it was a 1:3 or "DOU". In her case, it was probably that the correct dose of epi for his weight "seemed" too small, so it wasn't registering in her mind. A new grad in a peds hospital, in her case were contributing factors.

Sometimes I read posts from nurses who are fearful of any sort of "write-up", as though a disciiplinary action for something like excessive absences are functionally the same as an "incident" report meant to improve things. I don't ever recall being fearful of writing an incident report. I only had one, but I was not hesitant to do it at all.

Every error is unique, and caused by a combination of human and system error. 2 of my co-workers in home health have made errors with po drugs, and they only have one patient. That's probably the far extreme of non-system caused error. I'm not even sure if a nurse fails to self-report an incident she is aware of has enough integrity to continue in the field at all. That is demonstrating in action that she cares more about herself than her patient's well-being and her co-workers opportunity to learn from his or her mistake.

Ed. to add: the allergy mix-up probably did heighten my sense of vigilance- not long after a patient called to say that 30 min. after their shot their "tongue itched". Since I was new, I thought it was an odd way to word something, but , "ahh, maybe I better run it by the allergist anyway. Yeup. Boy, am I glad I did.

[kevagonia]

this is one of the most peculiar threads

[suanna]

Excuse me, but MA's are trained quite well in giving injections. We are after all, the office personnel. We "assist" the doctor. So please take your condescending attitude elsewhere.

Furthermore, I cannot even count the number of residents that have come through our office that I have personally had to train in giving injections and drawing blood. They aren't routinely taught this in Med School!

If you check the title of the webpage this is "allNURSES".com not "anyonewhohaseverworkedinhealthcare".com. I have nothing against your participation on this site, but I was responding to nurses, on a nursing webpage, in a nursing forum, about something that impacts the practice of nursing. I ment no disrespect to MAs but I am not a MA and was unaware they were trained in the administration of medication. I stand corrected. My attitude was in no way ment to be condescending. I just have never had a doctor that didn't use a nurse to give injections or do proceedures. I am also trained to "assist" the doctor, but just because I had an OR rotation, I wouldn't expect people to assume I'm qualified to do open heart surgery and give the doctor a call afterward to let him know how it went. I have not made a study of every possible job that overlaps with my profession. If I do not have the responsibility to work with MAs I don't really know what your training entailed- And yes- I am suprised MAs can administer medications. I thought that was a responsibility authorized and protected by the B.of N., nurse practice act, and the state medical board. My doc also employs a transcriptoinist to type his H&P. notes and so forth. I'm sure she is trained to perform a task that "assists" the doctor, but I wouldn't expect her to pull out a syringe an come at my gluteus- it dosn't mean I disrespect the job she does do.