Please Help! Major ERROR

If someone wrote and incident report on the error I am sure your manager knows about it. Not sure why she hasn't talked to you... But, you are human, you made an error, no one died. Learn from this and move on. I doubt you will make this mistake again! Take a deep breath and please stop beating yourself up over this!

You made a mistake. You'll never make this kind of mistake again. Learn from it and move on. At least you fessed up to it and no one was injured. I don't think you'll be fired over this. My question is though--why did neither doctors for each patient realized this was or was not ordered. Were both patients in need of antibiotics? Someone should have been following up on their meds. Makes me wonder.

Thanks for your comment. My manager has been off of work that's why she probably doesn't know yet. I'm really trying hard not to beat myself up over this. I'm driving my husband nuts! I guess what also bothers me is that the chart checks. double signing, and doctors signing orders that are meant to catch these kinds of mistakes all got missed because of the timing. Worst feeling ever.....

HeatwaveRN,

I can't really tell you either what happened. I'm suprised it was missed for more then 1 day also and why either doctor for either pt didn't notice that they were getting it and not getting it. They both were not on antibiotics. However, I am never taking a telephone order during shift change again as there is usually too much going on at that time!!

Yes, you made an error, but this is why most errors of this sort should be looked at as a system error. What needs to be investigated is why all of the "fail-safes" built into the system also failed.

You've done enough beating up on yourself to assure you will never repeat this mistake, now treat yourself as kindly as you would a coworker who had made the same error and try coming up with some new ideas to help keep this from happening with someone else.

I'm waiting for a call back from my manager. I'll let everyone know what happens...... I have definetely learned from my mistake. I know several people on my unit have given the wrong medications to a patient and they still have there jobs or given medications on the wrong day and it is kind of shrugged off as a live and learn type thing. I guess this is kind of the same thing.

You did the right thing of admitting your mistake.

you have beaten yourself up enough about this. i am a retired nurse of 25yrs.made mistakes,thank god didn't kill anybody but always keep in mind what can i learn from this.you will never make this particular mistake again.also remember "the hurrieder i go the behinder i get." don't let anybody rush you unless there is something on fire or there is a code going on.i've seen most of my codes at shift change.you should also get your own nursing liability insurance,any hospital will throw you under the bus if they can.don' give up, if you were a bad nurse you wouldn't be this upset.let me know how it goes.

It was a mistake but did not result in loss of life or limb. You will be more vigilant when writing any telephone order. It could have happened at any time in a shift. You have learned a lesson and probably helped many nurses here. Another day, another lesson learned.

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm still waiting for my NM to call me back. Everyone sure is right though. I made a mistake and I'll learn from it. There's a lot of "caddy" nurses on my unit who like to pick and point mistakes of other nurses whether they are new or seasoned. It's amazing to see the lack of team work and division between the night nurses/day nurses/weekend nurses/nursing aides who are always quick to blame others. I'm sure there will be certain nurses talking about my mistake oow but I'll have no problem admitting it and hopefully helping to make sure it doesn't happen to others.

We learn by the mistakes we make, right? I don't mean to downplay your situation, but try not to let this bother you that bad, it's okay, every turned out okay. It doesn't mean you won't make a good nurse, in fact, you'll be a better nurse because of it.

Do you have an organizational paper brain that you use? I will post a link at the bottom of this page of an organized paper that you can take a look at. On the back side of the page, I draw columns for each patient I have. I label my columns with the room number and place patient labels at the bottom of these columns. If I get a telephone order, I will write it on the back of this page in my column for that particular patient. I also write PRN meds or any other pertinent info, such as lab results, etc. Being more organized will help you a lot. And when you go to transcribe or write an order, just double and triple check.....look at the name, look at the chart your writing in, match names and do that 2-3 times. Like going through the house 2-3 times making sure you turned every thing off before you leave. I don't know if you're like that or not, but I am. It's called OCD. LOL

I won't even label a lab spec away from the bedside......even though I know what my pts name is, I ask them there name when I'm labeling my lab tubes at there bedside while I'm looking at the label. They look at me like I'm crazy, but it's habit I've gotten myself in to. But can you imagine what kind of mistake it could be labeling a wrong lab tube for a different patient??......oh my gosh, that's a nightmare of mine. I'm so careful with this as well as my medication.

I made a pretty significant error once before.......I gave contrast to somebody that had a high creatinine level. Every thing turned out okay, but man, I was so scared. I felt like I ruined this persons kidneys. I'm much more careful. All these types of mistakes, we learn from.

You'll be fine. It's all part of being a new nurse. Almost every nurse I know has made errors, it's just part of the learning process. Take care and get some sleep. You are a good nurse! PS......I think you NM will understand, I don't think you should worry about your job. Just explain to her what you've learned from this.

REPORT SHEET -----

Look on the second page...post #15. This is a very good report sheet you can use. It will hold info up to 6 patients. You can tweak it as you like. Draw your columns on the back and get organized, it will help so much.

https://allnurses.com/first-year-after/report-sheet-148952-page2.html#post3875120