New Nurse Mistakes

dudette10, MSN, RN · Feb 25, 2015

Expecting others to do their jobs. Still gets me everytime. From expecting pharmacy to have delivered a scheduled med that is NOT new, expecting social work/case management to have everything done for a discharge (Home O2, transportation, Dialysis, transportation from their new SNF to their new HD clinic, etc), to expecting CNAs to chart the in&outs, expecting the monitor tech to call when a patient desats or has frequent PVCs, expecting RT to show up after you call in a PRN treatment... the list goes on an on. For the most part, this all gets done. But it's those times that I don't double check when it bites me and my patient in the toosh.
I'm just under a year new grad, been on an acute tele floor for 9 months now. Still learning a lot and still making mistakes, but the expectation that others will carry out their tasks, tasks which fall under MY LICENSE, are by far the biggest pain.

And they all act like they are doing YOU, the RN, a personal favor. "No, I'm not asking for you to set up MY new home O2...I just want the patient to be able to breathe at home, don't you?"

CamillusRN, BSN · Feb 26, 2015

I rapidly adopted my instructor's responses to any given question: "Well, look it up!" Kinda hated them for it at the time, but nowadays it's my go-to! If a student is gonna cut it in the "Real World," it's time to cut the cord and do their own research (even if it's a small effort) before asking questions. Especially about meds. We have drug guides for that. If it's not in there, then ask. But it's probably in there.

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Feb 26, 2015

The problem I have found is that some of the much older threads have been closed, so even if relevant I cannot post in it to revive it. In that case, I would start a new thread for new feedback (but should I reference the old thread via a link?). Seems like anything 2009 and before is automatically closed? Not sure if that's true or whether it is AN policy to auto close threads with no new posts in x years due to age.

Sent from my iPad using allnurses

kaylee. · Apr 30, 2015

I definitely see the value in starting a new thread, if you have something to share that you would like specific feedback on. But "mistakes" is one of the ones where I would just search and read old posts to read the tons of examples that have been written over the years. Maybe next time the OP, if they want to start a new ongoing thread about a common topic, they could give a personal experience or thought that was on their mind that prompted interest in the topic in the first place. It makes it more interesting and people will want to comment. There are a couple threads on the same topic just a few posts before this one, and the person had an example to start off, and they prompted good discussions. If you don't have a personal context to start off the discussion, then its probably best to search and just read what has already been put out there.