Trip_McNeelyRN2b

I am starting to embrace my time off as this whole situation has been very sobering. You can't get too comfortable or complacent, you have to always be on top of your game. I take full responsibility for the insulin situation and if that is what is enough to make me fail I accept that. My main problem with the situation was that they were trying to throw the kitchen sink at me and pile it on. The HIPAA violation I had an issue with as my entire cohort didn't realize this was a HIPAA violation and they had to pull an emergency teaching situation on what we could and couldn't do according to my fellow classmates. They tried to say that my entire cohort took a long lunch (did they follow us to lunch or what?) which is inaccurate. They also accused me of doing my care plan on their computers, when I was actually in my patients records getting medication information. Another issue I had was why wasn't any of this addressed to me at any point throughout the day? If my nurse felt I was being unsafe, she should of pulled me aside and talked to me about it, or her supervisors. She continued to let me do care until the end of the day. I have had the insulin situation beat into my head and I will learn and become stronger because of it, however I don't appreciate the "piling" on and straight up lying that my professor did in class, trying to make me look even worse and claiming that the nurse never gave me permission to enter the room with another student. Essentially she straight up LIED to the class. Let me reiterate, I am extremely aware and remorseful about the error and it has changed my whole paradigm concerning patient care, I am not trying to come off as rude or uncaring, this whole situation just stinks.

Yes because the internet is a very solid medium for detecting someone's true emotion. That is asinine to presume that I felt no remorse over the insulin mishap, but whatever, I am tired of explaining myself to you because you seem to be dead set on believing that I don't care or have remorse or that it didn't really affect me. Your first response to me was negative and you started critiquing my grammar.

Perhaps you didn't read the part where I said that it severely affected my psyche. I am sure you have never once made a mistake right? And if you are a nurse you have never once made a mistake during clinicals or practice right?

thank you

Thanks for sharing your story!

Well said, certainly a learning experience. I was always careful during med administration and prided myself on being so, but I made a mistake that I will never make again. It is extremely important to make multiple checks during med administration...starting from the med station to the bed side and right before administration .

You're right, it wasn't in the original post, I thought it was rather irrelevant until someone mentioned we should of got permission from her next of kin if she was unable to talk. Just so happened her son was in the room and we asked him if it was okay if we could look at the ventilator in which he didn't have a problem with.

As far is the HIPAA issue, there is absolutely nothing else I am leaving out of that situation. My fellow student was over in my pod and I told him I had a patient on a ventilator in which he asked if he could see because he has never cared for a patient before on a vent. I approached my nurse and asked if it was fine if he went into the room and she said it was okay. In the room, he asked the patients son if it was okay if he was in the room to look at the ventilator and he obliged. We talked about the ventilator for a couple minutes then exited the room.

Thank you for sharing your story.

The insulin error occurred after lunch, roughly 1pm. She never mentioned anything relating to the error other than noticing that it was not the right dose. She continued to let me provide care for the patient the rest of the day till around 6pm, not expressing any concerns she had with the effectiveness of my care which is rather perplexing. This was on a Monday, I was notified that following Friday via email not to show up to clinicals on Monday and to meet with my supervision.

The fact of the matter is I always double check my insulin with my nurse prior to administration. The fact that she caught it at the med station before I was able to is what I am getting in trouble for. In reality, we are still talking about a hypothetical situation any way you slice it.

I never once said it was "no biggie" that the nurse caught it after I pulled the needle out of the vial. You need to stop putting words in my mouth and assuming how I feel or reacted. I told you that I felt horrible for what I did but I always double check my insulin with the nurse BEFORE I administer it to the patient. She just happen to catch the error at the med station. If we are going to talk about hypothetically administering 30 iu's to the patient, than we must hypothetically consider that I would of caught it bed side before administration. I feel that this situation was poorly handled by my school's end and so do other of my nursing friends who have been in the practice for quite some time. I don't feel like I am immune from the situation, but this is a first offense and there is no pattern of malicious behavior at any facility I have ever been to in almost 3 years of clinical experience, administering many units of insulin within that time frame. Stop assuming I don't care, you don't know me, don't pretend like you do.

Nope, that is the entire story. They were really after me that day, they tried to say my cohort took a long lunch, and also tried to say that doing my care plan on their computers when I was actually looking up patient information to compile my care plan. It just seems like they were trying to ding me for everything. Just because I question the ambiguity of the situation does not mean that I don't have remorse or seem unsympathetic as some posters are claiming that I may "seem" like. This is certainly not the case. Certain aspects of this situation are puzzling, and resulted in my of my cohort being very worried on what they were and weren't allowed to do at the clinical facility. To make things worse, my classmates told me that our instructor told them that I never asked the nurse permission to enter the room, which is a bold faced lie. Again, the whole situation sucked, and I have certainly moved on from it and have fault awful over the last month, it has been an eye opener. But this situation raises a lot of question about the structure and foundation of nursing students at the clinical setting.

Thank you very much, your response was very motivational. She handed me the 1/2 mL/cc syringe which is typically for insulin dosages between 31-50 units. So I saw a 3 and pulled back (being 30 units) because I had been familiar with the smaller syringe (3/10 mL/cc) for much smaller dosages. Not saying it was her fault that she handed me the larger one, it just threw me off. I take full responsibility.

Hey thanks! It's one of those errors you make as a student or a nurse that really opens your eyes, the kind that you never make again. And I was perplexed why my nurse never brought up anything to me at the site, and waited to nail me when I left. I would of really appreciated if she would of pulled me to the side and explained how she felt and that I needed to slow down and focus. She continued to let me perform care for the entire day, even after the insulin error for whatever reason.