fiery_ai

My first, and hopefully the last, med error happened when I was a nursing student. I was in my 3rd year then, assigned in the ward. I gave a whole tablet to a patient.. I forgot what it was. But it should have been cut in half. I only realized my mistake when I was about to throw the med foil.. I read it and read the medication ticket, and realized that I gave twice the dose of the ordered med. I immediately told my clinical instructor about the incident. Afterwards, we reviewed the MIMS for any adverse effects of the overdosage of the drug. I continued to monitor the patient the rest of my shift. No adverse reactions, thank God!! Good thing, it was only a tablet.. still, you can just imagine my fear as a student. From then on, I always check the stock dose of any ampule, med foil, vial.. And so far, I'm doing well.. except for this one. Another medication error... almost!!!! Lol. Seriously, I believe that one really learns from past mistakes. I'm praying that I won't make any medication error in the future.

I'm a new nurse, 3 months and counting. This happened a week ago. I had this 60 y/o DM male patient who had a cellulitis on the left lower extremity. I assisted the doctor in doing I&D inside the room. Pus. Lots of it. (I heard later that the patient's wife knows the doc's mother personally so they agreed to do I&D inside the room to not add up the financial burden of going to OR for such minor surgery.) Afterwards, she ordered to give ATS (anti-tetorifice serum) 3000 units IM after negative skin test and TeAna 0.5cc IM. So okay, I explained to the patient the new meds I'll be giving. I told him I'll have to inject those meds on his arms. Then I did a skin test for ATS and injected the TeAna on his left arm. After 30minutes, I went back to check the skin test.. and called the ROD. It was negative. I had the ROD signed the chart. Then I went back to the patient. There was a side drip antibiotic on the main line so I removed it first. Then the next thing I remembered, I inserted the syringe with the ATS on the main line tube!!! OH MY GOD!!!! I don't know what happened but I just realized that I've already inserted it there!! Good heavens!! I was so relieved that something inside me stopped me from pushing the syringe... I was ONE PUSH away and I'll have my first ever med error as RN!!! :smackingf I immediately withdrew the syringe from the tube.. and said to the patient that I'll just go back to get an alcohol swab from the station. I went back to the room and asked for the patient's name again, and told him I have to inject the med on his right arm. He said kindly, "Yeah. I was wondering why you put it in the tube? I thought I heard you telling me I'll have both meds injected on my arms." All I replied was "Oh." Then told him to inhale because I'm about to inject the med. I said "thank you, sir" when I was about to leave the room. WHEW! I never admitted to him that I almost made a mistake. I don't want to lose any patient's confidence in me. He was discharged a day after.

So true. During my VERY FIRST 2 days working as a nurse on AM shift, I didn't have time to drink or pee, much more eat. I told that to my senior nurses once, and they gave me odd looks. I realized that no matter how busy my morning is, I should find the time to cater to my needs.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I read this thread for 5 hours, from page 1 to 42!!!!! I copied and pasted significant infos/advices and planning to print all of it!! I'm super excited because I'll be starting my work as a REAL NURSE two days from now!! November 14!! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SHARED THEIR EXPERIENCES :) Cheers, fiery_ai, RN

thanks :)

hello! :) are they still hiring for staff nurses?