xmsanta

Maybe a nurse but hired as a medication aide or scheduled as a medication aide that shift?

I had a similar experience when working in LTC for a few months. I was new too. Luckily the nurse manager allowed me to shadow different senior nurses a few more shifts. You will start to see how many steps they skip because it is 'common practice' or the reason they are so fast is that they remember all the medications already after 2-3 years of giving the same med to the same pt and know all their habit or they scan the med in first then give later or they really take a refusal as refusal and only try twice before they put the pt down as refused med in the chart. They can do check so quickly because they memorized all the med for each pt. I can't comment on whatever to continue and use bad practices in order to keep up or stay and memorized all the med and become as quick as they are. It's up to u to decide.

So the story goes like this. I am a new nurse for about 8 mths now. The patient was having febrile neutropenia with 2-3 episodes of a spike of temp at night for the past 2 weeks, no sign of infection, have cancer, and was getting chemo. The nurse last shift told me not to give the meropenem if the blood culture was negative in the shift change report. I re-read the MD note and I thought the MD note also said that and I took the note as an order (Apparently I read the old note, the MD added a note saying to continue the abx after, which I did not read). The blood culture was negative, and I did not give 2 doses of the meropenem as a result. In the day shift, my buddy nurse texted me and told me the family was upset that the pt missed the 2 doses of abx. The family was very upset and the pt was crying over missing the 2 doses of abx and that I did not give the 2 doses of abx without an order. The day nurse received 6 phone calls from the family. The MD and the day shift nurse had to apologize. I think the pt received the final dose of abx today from the day shift nurse in the end. I feel like I got no one to talk to that could empathize so I am writing here. I feel sorry for the pt, the family, the MD, and the day shift nurse. I feel like I let them down and it was dumb of me. I know that I can't blame anyone because I am the one making the final decision. Though I feel sorry, I am also scared about what will happen to me and if the pt will be okay. What do you guys think? I just want the honest truth and not just comforting words. ?