Here's some common mistakes you don't have to learn the hard way:
1. Painstakingly re-starting your patient's IV. One hour later, the MD discharges your patient. Before re-starting, consider the possibility of discharge, or if they even still need IV access.
2. Mistaking the female at your patient's bedside as his mother. Or his daughter. (It's his wife). This happens once in your career, at which point the lesson is learned. Similar to asking a woman if she's pregnant when she's not.
3. Leaving the rollerball clamped on your IV antibiotic so it doesn't infuse. Usually not noticed until the next shift. Face palm.
4. Dutifully clearing your IV pump but then instantly forgetting the totals. Now you have to calculate it all by hand. Always jot your totals down.
5. Reading tele strips upside down. Turn it around and voila! Rhythms look so much better right right side up.
6. A not-so- funny one: leaving the bed in high position and/or with side rails down. It's an easy mistake to make after transferring a patient over into the the bed from a guerney. A related mistake is not resetting the exit bed alarm when you put your patient back to bed.
7. Discharging your patient home with a saline lock. This mistake happens when you go in to discharge a patient, and they are already dressed, complete with clothing and shoes. Your brain is tricked into not checking for a saline lock under their sleeve. A related mistake: discharging your patient with pacing wires still in the chest (it happens!).
8. Forgetting to remove old transdermal patches when applying a new one (duragesic, nicotine, nitropaste). Some patients have patches stuck all over their back and arms. Be sure and do a full body check.
9. Calling the wrong doctor. Some patients have multiple specialists, and it's not always easy to know which one to call for what. Make your best guess, then consult another nurse or your charge nurse.
Another common mistake- thinking you'll never get it all down down and become organized. Not true! Trust me, you will. In a very short time, you'll no longer be the newbie, but the one new grads look up to!
What rookie mistakes have you made or witnessed? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear!
I'm a newbie nurse on a L&D floor. The other day was my first day in triage. I admitted a patient and took a history on her and she told me her pregnancy problems and then added on that she was also type 2 DM. So I asked my preceptor if I needed to do anything else. I totally forgot to tell her she was diabetic. About an hour later I walked by and my preceptor was putting an IV in her and hanging fluid. She was 36 weeks and contracting, so she was running fluid to help hydrate her and stop the contractions.
When the next shift came on and my preceptor looked at my sheet, she saw the diabetes listed then and told me to stop the fluid. Apparently she had hung D5 LR on this patient not knowing that she was diabetic and I totally missed that I needed to do a finger stick. The most simple nursing task to do and I completely forgot because I was so focused on the pregnancy problems. Still beating myself up about that one.
I was going through a run down of questions with a pregnant patient and was trying to catch up writing on her answers when I asked what drugs have she been taking and she answered metamphetamine and I was still writing. I was so busy thinking about other things that I forgot to hear sane answers. She was just kidding Lol
Years ago we used cooling blankets, the kind that circulated cold water through a plastic blanket. I set up machine, placed blanket under pt and turned on...oops forgot to connect tubing, water flying everywhere! My pants and shoes were soaked, shoes squishy all shift after that. Yuk.
I'm not a newbie but have made mistakes 2 & 3 on a not-so-regular basis. Number 3 is very easy to think you've fixed; it's great there's a beep to remind you if you haven't. :) Tired, overworked nurses can't be perfect and it's nothing more than YOUR time wasted.
Number 2? I've done that far more than once. I'm not even slightly embarrassed about it; I'm corrected and I move on. Can't say I have a whole lot of time to worry about this one.
Number 9 is also pretty easy to do since the doctors change and I'm on-call. Again, I just move on and try not to think about the minutes I've wasted. I've never had a doc who wasn't totally understanding.
My big pet peeve on what not to do (because it happens to me almost every week)? Not being quick enough to write down VS before your patient starts to ask a million distracting questions, the machine goes blank (ours doesn't save the numbers) and I have to list approximate VS after that because I'm gloved up and can't get back to my pen or computer fast enough. Relying on my memory is not so good. Damn.
Make sure you completely lock the Foley catheter bags after you empty them. In nursing school we were dealing with a complicated patient with a trach, Foley, and restraints. I was sweating and stressing up a storm. As we were getting ready to leave I looked down and slowly discovered the reason my scrubs were wet from the knee down...the catheter bag was left slightly open and I was covered in this woman's cloudy, foul-smelling urine. Which leads me to my next tip - keep an extra pair of scrubs in your locker just in case. No one wants to be covered in urine, feces, or vomit for an entire day!!!
I agree, always ask. My husband and his sister were in a serious auto accident years ago and, because they had the same last names, it was assumed she was his wife. The information was released to the press and that is how I heard about the accident, from the TV news.
Don't go into a new job criticizing the veterans. Pointing out their mistakes and being a know it all will not end well. And watch out for flying foot flakes when you you pull off socks. Inhaling them is just...
kimberly3230
1 Post
I'm a newbie nurse on a L&D floor. The other day was my first day in triage. I admitted a patient and took a history on her and she told me her pregnancy problems and then added on that she was also type 2 DM. So I asked my preceptor if I needed to do anything else. I totally forgot to tell her she was diabetic. About an hour later I walked by and my preceptor was putting an IV in her and hanging fluid. She was 36 weeks and contracting, so she was running fluid to help hydrate her and stop the contractions.
When the next shift came on and my preceptor looked at my sheet, she saw the diabetes listed then and told me to stop the fluid. Apparently she had hung D5 LR on this patient not knowing that she was diabetic and I totally missed that I needed to do a finger stick. The most simple nursing task to do and I completely forgot because I was so focused on the pregnancy problems. Still beating myself up about that one.