Bullied for reporting a med error by another nurse

Nurses Safety

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Ive just been called a number of names and criticised for incident reporting that a colleague made a drug error despite it being clearly prescribed. This isn't her first error in fact its one of many but this one i felt needed to be reported so i submitted an incident report form to my manager. My colleagues now think I'm the devil and say i should of spoke to my manager first. Firstly my manager was on holiday at the time secondly i have voiced concerns previously with no action taken. I even triple checked with the doctor that it was indeed a medication error. Has anyone been in a similar position? Im leaving this job as a result of this many other things.

Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
For some reason, this just tickled me silly. She probably forgot what name she was logged on under.Cute:)

I was thinking this was different nurse who had the same experience. But was wondering also....

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I am very proud of you for doing the right thing. We nee to report medical errors for the safety of the patients. I too was bullied for reporting a med error. I remember working at a LTC facility in Orange NJ. The nurses there had some dangerous practices. For example the day nurses would receive very critical labs such as K± 8.0, BUN 90, they would receive the results as early as 10am because on the lab sheet it would always have the time it was received and they would never follow up on it. They would wait for the next shift to come and say that they have take of it because they were too busy and didn't have time to follow up with the lab. They don't even stop to think about what could happen to the patient. There was one nurse who had a patient with high blood pressure of 160/90 and the it would not go down. So she calls the doctor and orders midodrine which we all know is for people with low blood pressure. Even though it was explained to her, she refused to listen and it gave it to the patient anyway. The blood pressure went up to 190/100. Thank God the patient did not have a stroke. Management stepped to handle the situation. We need to speak up more for our patients. That is what being a nurse is all about. Keep doing what you are doing.

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I feel for you. It happened to me before when I started working as ltc nurse. I complained my preceptor as she was giving sedatives at 1700 instead of 2100. She expected me to follow her practice as well just to restrain the residents from walking around. I complained her directly to the management and the other nurses shortly found out that I was the one who complained her. I was bullied and ridiculed for almost 2 months. My work and my personal life were greatly affected. I wanted to quit but then I realized why would I quit when I did the right thing. I stayed and proved to them that I'm better than my preceptor. Later on, the management and other nurses found out that she's not competent and very dangerous because she gave controlled drugs 2 hours earlier than the charted time (it's not prn or stat) and she administered double dosage of beta blockers and cardiac pills. Eventually, she left after several complaints against her. Just prove to them than you work there not to cover your colleague's back but you work there because of the patients. Better inform the management about the bullying. I know the feeling, it's like you're going to lose your passion and enthusiast as a nurse. Sometimes, you doubt if you really did the right thing but hey, Well done!!! Your facility is very lucky to have a nurse like you, my manager told me that as well. So cheer up, don't let them to drag you down.

I generally don't know if another nurse has erred, but I see how, in a situation like this, I would know.

OP, how did you know about your coworker's errors?

Who ratted you out? Who announced that you wrote up this erring nurse?

The only time I reported another nurse was when an alert tube feeder said she had not received her tube feeding and was hungry. The feed should have been given by the previous nurse. When this happened a second time, I asked the Sup if she thought Ms. _____ should be getting more calories, the suspicion was raised that maybe she wasn't getting all (or any, as it turned out) of her ordered feeds. And the pt was alert and coherent enough that she knew who should have fed her.

That same nurse was found to be faking accuchecks. You know how you can tell by looking at the history on the meter exactly when (date and time) a test was done. In those days, we didn't have to tell the machine who was using it or for which patient, but it was plain that only a couple out of 7 accuchecks had been done. The missing tests weren't on the other glucose meter either. Yet all 9 diabetics' charts contained glucose readings - most faked.

The nurse was fired. I don't know if she was reported to the BON or not. Probably not, as employers don't generally want to be bothered, seems to me from my non-boss perch.

So back to my original remark/thought - how do you know if another nurse has erred if you aren't orienting with him or her or if he/she doesn't announce that he/she made an error?

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I hate finding med errors, because we are legally obligated to report them. I've had to report a few, and I've made a few myself. If it's something I can fix without reporting it, I try to....but if there is nothing you can do about it, you have no choice but to report it.

First you should speak to the nurse involved and give that person a chance to correct it/report it, don't you think?

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LOL.... POST Resurrected

I bet the OP has a 4th allnurses account by now!:roflmao:

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.
I am not sure how the person in question knew it was you who completed the incident report. .

Our med error reporting process has us fill out a form where the person who found the report and the person who made the report both have to sign the same document.

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.
The way I'd treat it if I ever found another nurse who made a med error, how would I want to be treated. Think about that, your messing with someones ability to pay their bills and provide for themselves first and their family,

No. I am looking out for my patients, first and foremost. I may well not report an error to anyone but the person who made it, but my concern is never about whether or not someone needs their job, or at least thats not going to have any weight on whether or not its reported.

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Where I work some people seem to be afraid or more likely they are too lazy to fill out an incident report for a med error. Our policy is to fill out an incident report as soon as the med error is discovered. We have bubble packs that are timed and dated so, it's easy to see when a med was missed. I'll come in and so and so will say "oh btw, there's an extra pill in the pack from a few days ago someone missed" Of course no one has filled out a report yet so, I'll do it. I've filled out incident reports on other nurses, med aides and myself. Med errors happen....

Occasionally we will find a loose pill in the med box that isn't in a bubble pack and just waste it without filling out a report, there's no telling when or if it was missed or just an extra pill got packed etc..

Lindsey - the pill remaining in the bubble pack from a few days ago did not, apparently, cause any harm by being missed. Why waste your time writing it up? Why get a reputation for being the one who writes up everything. I don't think Management really appreciates it, either, as it makes her workers look bad and her, too. I think your heart is in the right place, but, as stated, it makes you look like the police and nothing can be done about it anyway. Maybe if enough doses were missed and it's an antibiotic, doc will extend the prescription, I guess. Blood thinners - hmmm... But really, we pretty much have to deal with the here and now.

Also - now that the boss knows a med was missed, what can she do about it? Perhaps mention it in a meeting that however many pills were left in the bubble packs since our last meeting. Let's all be extra careful.

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I want to THANK YOU for taking action. That's a good nurse!

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