ive been in nursing school for 2 years now, i been doing kind of well in classes since i love pharma and i really like being all near the blood and medicines and i have always liked hospitals.
jsut today i was caring for a well behaved 2 year old boy and took his vital signs, and checked his IV levels and so on. his mom was adamant to leave that day so a few hours after meeting them i was assigned to discontinue his IV, and i did so with a lot of care but i was pretty nervous and shaky.
i wrote down my nursing care notes in advance, 5 hrs before it was due. then the nightmare happened.
the chart had a lot of sheets in it and i had a hard time looking for the nurses notes, i saw the date july 9 on a newsprint (newsprint or the gray sheet is the usual standard nursing care notes)..so i wrote like 7 lines in on there when my classmate looked over and said.."you're writing on the doctors orders sheet"..
confused i was thinking ..this cant be, doctors sheets are yellow and usually in front of the other papers like patient info and prescriptions and cbc reports and so on. checking further i realized she was right.
i told our clinical instructor about it and he didnt yell at me, he was upset at me of course and he told me the least thing that can happen to me is an "incident report.. its a report that goes to the dean at school and it means i am in big trouble that i have never been in my whole life in nursing school (although i have heard of others getting it but i dont know if it was just a threat to them or was really carried out)..
the nurse on duty told my instructor that it was ok, so i was releived and went for lunch. when i came back my instructor told me i was really gonna have an incident report. then i went to take a bathroom break and noticed that other students from other schools were looking at me. turns out the nurse on duty told everyoen about it.
we're gonna hve 5 more months working in that hospital and at this point i wonder..i am the only one who made this mistake and its supposedly the "Gravest" one in terms of legal issues.
i am thinking of just stopping for now and think, this isnt for me.
i havent made a mistake and medicines or dosages, and i havent made a mistake ever but this i am afraid i might even get arrested.
can anyone help me, like has anyone heard of a similar incident or ..its just only me who has ever done this ?
if not what punishment do people get? do they get arrested?
thank you
sorry if im writing like crazy i am trying to stop from crying
Oh, BTW, here's a little insider tip regarding documenting "ahead". If you have made a plan with a patient regarding how your cares will proceed through the shift, it would be acceptable to chart that, so long as you state that it is the planned care.
For instance:
"Planned with patient to attend all infant feedings overnight to observe for appropriate latch, position and infant feeding behaviour. Patient aware to use call light to notify writer when baby feedings are initiated by the patient. Patient aware of prn analgesia available to them. Patient aware of plan to d/c foley catheter and IV at 06:00 per clinical pathway.--------ToxoplasmaGandhi, RN"
HvnSntRN
89 Posts
Oh, BTW, here's a little insider tip regarding documenting "ahead". If you have made a plan with a patient regarding how your cares will proceed through the shift, it would be acceptable to chart that, so long as you state that it is the planned care.
For instance:
"Planned with patient to attend all infant feedings overnight to observe for appropriate latch, position and infant feeding behaviour. Patient aware to use call light to notify writer when baby feedings are initiated by the patient. Patient aware of prn analgesia available to them. Patient aware of plan to d/c foley catheter and IV at 06:00 per clinical pathway.--------ToxoplasmaGandhi, RN"