Hi, I just recently graduated and got a job directly out of nursing school at a hospital known to have a very busy PCU. I'm on orientation week 9 out of 14, 2 days ago was my first day taking on all 5 pts and I was rushing to complete all the things I needed to do: vitals/assessments, morning meds ect. When I went to give one of my pts their morning meds they asked me to get their pain meds....not paying attention I gave the pt 1mg dilauded when he was suppose to get 10 mg Oxy IR, I immediatly filed an incident report, called the doctor, and made sure my pt was ok. W/ the same pt later that day I gave him his scheduled bp medication when his bp was less that what it needed to be in order to give that med...literally as soon as he swallowed it I said to myself I was sappose to hold that med. I was sooo upset and felt soooo stupid for making these mistakes, I felt like I just had a horrible day. I am normally more attentive.
Yesterday I got called into the nurse managers office (I knew was bound to happen), in the office were my nurse manager, nurse educator, and clinical assistant. My nurse manager began to to discuss the incident. I explained to the best of my ability what had happened and the steps I took after. My nurse manager began to tell me that she feels that I am not progressing well in my orientation and questioned me about whether or not this is what I want to do and if this is the floor that I want to work on. (this contradicted what my preceptor has been telling me: that I have been doing good especially w/ the type of patient load we have been working with). They went on to what felt to my like an interrogation of my intension and my feelings about what had happened. I felt like they were trying to break me down and make me cry. My nurse manager told me to come back tomorrow at 12 instead of my scheduled time 7am to discuss what it means to me to be a nurse, and if I still wanted to work there.
I know what I did was wrong and I felt terrible for it. My intension wasn't to hurt anybody. I feel as though by making these mistakes they will stick with me in the back of my mind, when giving meds which will only make me a better nurse. I am dreading tomorrow and don't know what to do or say to show them that I am serious about my job.
Thanks for the advise. I thought the same thing....that I should just leave it alone and be glad to be out of there. (people that I had been talking to (who are not in healthcare....were telling me I should complain to HR(??), so I figured I would throw it out there and ask)
I really need to do some soul searching and figure out what I wanna do with myself. I am still very interested in research, I also like forensics (during my undergrad I was in the forensics program but then strayed from it to do a dual bachelors in Bio and Psych)
gizmo222
13 Posts
Thanks for the advise. I thought the same thing....that I should just leave it alone and be glad to be out of there. (people that I had been talking to (who are not in healthcare....were telling me I should complain to HR(??), so I figured I would throw it out there and ask)
I really need to do some soul searching and figure out what I wanna do with myself. I am still very interested in research, I also like forensics (during my undergrad I was in the forensics program but then strayed from it to do a dual bachelors in Bio and Psych)