quit nursing after med errors?

pjpj · May 21, 2010

Have a few weeks of being supervised with your medication rounds, explain what each med is and what it is for, link the med back to the patient condition. This strategy worked well on our ward with a post grad.

ozgretch · May 21, 2010

I definitely wouldn't quit over that. You have worked hard to get where you are and deserve to give yourself a desent chance at this career! If I was in this situation, despite my ego, I would enlist the help of someone senior at work that can thouroughly go over the error's with you, perhaps find a trend and then look at techniques to stop this from happening again. You have already taken the right step by admitting you have a problem here - so now take the next steps to right the problem. And remember - errors/mistakes can never be eliminated but can be minimised when you are practising at your best.

NightOwl0624 · May 21, 2010

To the lovely ladies that seem to want to turn this thread into an "attack the student" exercise, please take time off from adding frogs to your cauldrons and reread my original post. I said the OP should question whether they have some innate reason for not being able to follow a protocol. Did I say quit? NO. Did I put myself in that person's scenario and then post how I felt?YES. Did the OP ask for opinions?YES .
If the original post had given more detail, then perhaps a different answer would have been appropriate, for example, "I gave meds late 5 times in 7 months because I am the only RN in an LTC with a ratio of 1:60" My answer would have been "You deserve a medal and a place in the Olympics". However I answered the OP with the info given. Sue me.

Well, you are right, there wasn't much information given. There are med errors, and then there are MED ERRORS if you know what I mean.

jzkfel · May 21, 2010

To the lovely ladies that seem to want to turn this thread into an "attack the student" exercise, please take time off from adding frogs to your cauldrons and reread my original post.
You really should dial it down a notch. Not a way to win friends or influence people in the workplace (or build a career).
You might also be interested to know that about 1/4 of the nurses on my floor are men.....

Suethestudent · May 21, 2010

I like the notch that my dial is at... must be a younger generation thing.

cb_rn · May 21, 2010

OH NO, ANOTHER MEAN OLD NURSE PICKING ON A STUDENT!

I find it interesting how expressing my opinion suddenly means that I "stuff a frog in cauldron" whatever the heck that means (I'm guessing that I'm a witch?)

You will find if you read my posts that there are no personal attacks on you but for some reason it is ok to imply that I'm a witch for not agreeing with you or daring to offer that your response shows a lack of experience? None of the experienced nurses that offered a critique of your response were criticizing you directly, merely your lack of experience to really be able to place yourself in the OP's situation. Without having worked as a nurse on your own license, I really doubt you see the number of med errors made all the time. Even if you were working as a CNA or a nurse intern, I really doubt any nurse is going to come out of a room announcing she made a med error. Its not really something you announce except to the physician unless you need help with the interventions. 5 med errors in 7 months is not a lot if they are not big errors. We don't have the information on what kind of errors OP made but if the place of employment isn't firing her, forcing her to quit, or reporting her one can reasonably assume they aren't massive mistakes. In light of this, your reply seemed to be the typical critical response based on a philosophical view of nursing and what "ought" to happen, not what actually happens when you are in the trenches and things aren't happening how the textbook likes to tell you they do.

Further, instead of attacking you, several of us reiterated that you were correct that OP could kill someone AND needed to be careful and figure out what was going on. We merely stated your position was harsh and that time and experience would teach you that. However, your subsequent replies continue to show a lack of professional maturity. You are entitled to post any opinion you want on an open forum and we are allowed to post counter points and criticisms to that post. A personal attack on any of us is not warranted. There are going to be times in your nursing career that you have to accept criticism. It will not always be worded as nicely as you would like it to be although at least I apologized for being abrasive in my post. I doubt you will get that in real life very often. You don't necessarily have to agree with the criticism you will receive but if you want to grow as a nurse you need to consider the points brought up thoughtfully and shed your defensiveness and certainly not use a thinly barbed insult to lessen the sting of having others disagree with you.

While I support your right to disagree with us and post all you like, I highly encourage to work on your need to top from the bottom, so to speak, because a physician or an administrator is not going to take it as well as a bunch of old witches on a fairly anonymous nursing forum. I still wish you all the best.

Edit: Not gonna apologize for the top from the bottom comment either. I love student nurses and I love my CNAs and I love teaching but in the world of nursing, licensed personnel has more expertise and is the one that has the duty of delegation and decision on the nursing level.

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · May 21, 2010

I'm gonna ignore the drama and just answer the OP's question :)

I think we need a little more info before we can comment. If these are all different and mostly minor errors, then heck no. Don't quit, learn from them and move on. For example, if on one day you gave a med late, another day you gave too much/too little of something, if another day you missed a dose, etc. then I think this is just part of the learning curve and you need to examine why the errors happened and make sure they are not repeated.

If, on the other hand, you are making the same error over and over, or are making serious errors over and over...well I still don't say quit but at the very least consider some major remediation and mentoring to see where you are going wrong. For example, if you are having trouble with dosage calcs, maybe you are just not strong in math but once you recognize this you can be extra careful and have someone check you.

My personal experience: I had several near miss events with the same situation. At the first hospital I worked for, the sliding scale insulin chart was posted above the sink in the med room on colored paper and a weird type font. I had trouble with following the cart to see how many units to give based on the pts BSG. Luckily either I caught it in time or the nurse checking the dose caught it, but it could have been bad. My solution, I made a copy of the chart and kept it on my clipboard so I could trace it with my finger or a pencil to make sure I was not "drifting" to another line. And also to SLOW DOWN when doing insulin.

Now, if someone is making serious careless errors over and over despite counseling and remediation, and system-type errors have been ruled out, I have to say I would question their ability and motivation to do the job. I feel very strongly that this is almost NEVER, if not completely NEVER the case. I am sure there a very few nurses out there that just don't give a flip and don't pay attention to what they are doing, but if that was the case here the OP would not be posting asking for adivice. To me that is a sign of a nurse who is reaching out for help and wanting to improve.

ris_03tdgz · May 21, 2010

Thank you everyone for your encouragement, words of wisdom/positive criticisms. I really appreciate it. I am just scared as to what kind of nurse I will become if I keep making mistakes. I always tell myself to relax and not get caught up with the anxiety/stress especially while in the middle of med pass (have 8-9 patients in a medsurg floor), but sometimes I just cant help it. When I'm stressed, thats when I tend to make mistakes. (gave med to the wrong patient).My mistake was I did not look at the armband but then again most of our patients have been in the facility for weeks so I thought I was "safe" and that I knew my patients well already.

Again, thank you and I'll definitely do a root cause analysis to figure out what I'm doing wrong. My med errors have not resulted in harm to any of my patients but i'm still very concerned as you never know what kind of error might happen next.

CNL2B · May 21, 2010

I like the notch that my dial is at... must be a younger generation thing.

You will learn quickly that in the helping professions this attitude will get you absolutely nowhere. Patients don't like it, families don't like it, and people don't like to work with people that are like that. You will be in your manager's office every other week with this kind of attitude.

And believe me, I know. It takes one to know one. And, perhaps a "younger generation thing" -- that I'm not so sure about -- aybe "young" meaning "inexperienced" and "doesn't know better." Some people never learn, though -- this type of rationale for behavior is seen across all generations and age groups. Those of us that can be aggressive can and should need to learn the basics of human communication and diplomacy. You will be stuck at the bottom forever if you don't.

It is not wise to **** others off. Find your inner peace, young one, choose your battles wisely, and check your attitude at the door.

healthstar, BSN, RN · May 21, 2010

Everybody makes mistakes some more than others. You should not give up your dream because you made med errors, you are a new RN and you can't possibly know everything. Just look up your drugs in the drug book before you give any meds, don't assume you know them. And try to eliminate any distractions, especially when you are a new grad. I am scared of pharm too, there are so many drugs and I feel like I am going to graduate from nursing school and not remembering a lot of drugs :) Don't give up, this is the biggest mistake people make.

healthstar, BSN, RN · May 21, 2010

You know what is so sad when a patient dies from dehydration because the nurses from day,evening, and night shift did not check if the patient was getting any fluids. It wasn't just one nurse but 3 nurses working in different shifts, and they are still working as nurses, did not quit. You can lose a patient from things that would never cross your mind.

SandraCVRN · May 22, 2010

Thank you everyone for your encouragement, words of wisdom/positive criticisms. I really appreciate it. I am just scared as to what kind of nurse I will become if I keep making mistakes. I always tell myself to relax and not get caught up with the anxiety/stress especially while in the middle of med pass (have 8-9 patients in a medsurg floor), but sometimes I just cant help it. When I'm stressed, thats when I tend to make mistakes. (gave med to the wrong patient).My mistake was I did not look at the armband but then again most of our patients have been in the facility for weeks so I thought I was "safe" and that I knew my patients well already.
Again, thank you and I'll definitely do a root cause analysis to figure out what I'm doing wrong. My med errors have not resulted in harm to any of my patients but i'm still very concerned as you never know what kind of error might happen next.

Looks like one of the problems is the number of pts you have. That is too many pts even for a more experienced nurse let alone someone with 7 months experience.

What shift are you working...