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!
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...
I will never understand why people do that. As a new nurse, you want people to like you. And what do they think would happen? That there'll be no retaliation? So naïve.
here's one along the lines of asking the family members instead of assuming who they are. If you run into the family member outside of the hospital, ask them how they are doing, not about the patient, who may or may not have expired since you last cared for them. A mistake I certainly never make again.
1) Not a funny post, but I had to learn as a newbie to really stop and pay attention to how drugs are packaged. Not everybody is prescribed 4mg of morphine so 2 mg is only 0.5mL.
2) Another thing is define tlc asking for help. Stop trying to be everywhere at once.
3) I'm in the ER so trying not to get in the habit of waiting to chart. Charting as you go will save you when those cardiac arrest or stroke alert pts come in on your "down time".
1. Just did (3): At the end of shift forgot to unclamp the piggy back IV bag, so patient continued to received only the fluids (which were ordered anyway), until next shift noticed antibiotics weren't running.
2. This one was really bad: walked into a room; a person of an ethnicity different than the patient's dressed in Isolation gear was helping the patient to the bathroom. I asked "are you her nursing assistant?". Turns out it was patient's adopted daughter. Big oops. Not doing that one again
3. Called pharmacy to tell I couldn't scan a med, when in fact I dropped the label with the actual scan code (now I know all infusions in my facility come with a separate label, and I should look for it)
4. Always staying late at work because I always get busy doing stuff and don't finish charting. Still haven't figured out how to resolve this problem.
1. Make sure you turn your lopez valve the right way, because wearing the crushed up pill fragments with a mix of tube feed, and gastric sauce is .... aromatic.
2. Don't argue with "goodfellas", those nurses that have been on the floor for years. Not only will it not matter if you are right or wrong, it will get around, especially in a small hospital. That being said, continue your personal practice based on EBP, and hospital policy even if it is not what a "goodfella" would do.
3. Education is not > than experience. I had a RN the other day who only charted S2 on a pt in afib the other day. Their rational was that since there is no P-wave there can't be an S1 .... they not only were a BSN, but an MSN, and a CCRN! Sadly they were orienting a new nurse so I pulled the student aside, and had to explain the difference between an electrical event and a mechanical event.
4. Years ago I walked past a room and saw a pt's head near the roof, when I asked the student what was going on, she said that the pt was on bedrest, but refused a bedpan so she put him on a commode .... on the bed.
Ristosix
4 Posts
I write my vitals on the glove, did it a lot in the field and it helped, draw a line and time...then do your second set