calamityjane1

Thank you so much for your response. Redness was the only thing I saw, swelling occurred between me seeing him and my nurse colleague seeing him the next day, those were the only symptoms. Out of hours saw him after that. I know I should have done a test, as I said, I'm absolutely kicking myself mentally, pretty much physically too. The docs have had words with my colleague for doing things wrong before, and they haven't had words with me, I assume that they know that I've at least joined the dots now. Pity it wasn't sooner. He was asymptomatic otherwise, no confusion, no smelly urine, that's why I didn't suspect it. I'm so stupid. So stupid - not that I didn't think this before, but its definitely confirmed now I can't shake the guilt, and I'm too scared to go speak to the docs about it myself. At the very least it's a mistake I'll never make again, that's the only positive I'm seeing here.

I'm looking for some advice, or reassurance. Or something. Maybe I don't deserve any. I've been qualified two years this month. Spent 13 months in acute surgical, in my 11th month in a rural community setting. I have never been confident in nursing, I feel dumb no matter how much I study. Lately I've been feeling so rubbish at my job. I am often the only community nurse on for our patch, and obviously have to deal with things on my own, miles from anywhere, this doesn't bother me, however the decision making does. If its a straight forward injection or dressing, that's fair enough but I feel like the doctors expect me to automatically know things that my colleague does (she's been nursing for 40 years). I'm well aware I'm inexperienced compared to her, but I feel like I should be more experienced than I am, even though I've got loads to learn still and am still adjusting to moving from acute to community. Anyways this thing happened when I was asked to see a patient (obviously can't go into too much detail). I did a brief examination, and should have performed a simple urine test, but I didn't, because I didn't see how these two things were connected, and in fact, it didn't even cross my mind. Kicking myself in hindsight, but there were two symptoms and they weren't typical symptoms of a UTI that I had ever come across. I reported what I'd seen to the doc, he asked if he had a UTI, I said I didn't think so with the symptoms he had (duh... I know). So I go into work a week later and he's in hospital albeit for a completely different thing but also shows he was positive for UTI. So someone checked it after me. Nobody has said anything to me, but the doc made a point of telling me that he was really unwell, which they don't normally do, they let us ask them. I feel so guilty. How can I get better at my job? I feel so rubbish, and I'm sure they think I'm a dimwit. Should I be better than this at my two years post grad point? I can't believe I missed this, I'm worried I'll miss something bigger.