Nursing Mistake Feeling Down

[Missbigeyes, BSN]

I've been a nurse for about 2 years now, I was working in hospital ambulatory care (spent a lot of time doing vaccines) but now I do allergy. I had taken some 6 months off in between just because the pandemic was getting to me.

I started learning allergy shots with the older nurse, and I get bad performance anxiety when I know I'm being watched. OMG, I don't know what happened with me, I drew it up great, went to inject and then somehow I didn't press the plunger on the syringe so when I took it out the patient I had the full dose left (I thought I had pressed it but I didn't).

I was so embarrassed and I got it on the second try but I was just so ashamed - I was so focused on not letting my nerves get to me (my hands get shakey when I'm nervous) because I was being watched that I just spazzed out on an injection. I just feel terrible now. Any advice ? 

[SGRN]

Hi there! 
I just got on here because I made a similar mistake and am feeling down. We have management newly at our location also watching over and it completely affects the way I function. I ended up doing a subQ in the back of a patients arm.. when I went for the plunger I accidentally pulled the entire needle back out and had to poke her a second time. This happened this morning and it’s still on my mind and making me feel horrible. Hopefully this helps a bit, you are not alone

[Missbigeyes, BSN]

9 minutes ago, SGRN said:

Hi there! 
I just got on here because I made a similar mistake and am feeling down. We have management newly at our location also watching over and it completely affects the way I function. I ended up doing a subQ in the back of a patients arm.. when I went for the plunger I accidentally pulled the entire needle back out and had to poke her a second time. This happened this morning and it’s still on my mind and making me feel horrible. Hopefully this helps a bit, you are not alone

Thank you so much this makes me feel better, I will try to be more confident !

[SGRN]

Yes, me too! Your post helped me a lot. I was convinced I was worthless and the only person who would do something like that LOL. Wish it wasn’t so easy to be hard on ourselves! I hope we both feel better by tomorrow and forget asap!!