Randome drug screening due to honest mistake

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I am a New Grad nurse in The ER, last Thursday I had the worse experience of my life I can say or at least the most embarrassing of my working life. I found a 2mg vial of morphine on my pocket with 1mg waste left over ( meaning I gave 1mg to the patient tuesday night and 1mg needed to be waste). I am a night nurse and it was a busy night, I totally black out and human mistake forget to waste the 1mg of morphine, not till I was about to do my laundry on Thursday morning because I work that night, the little vial came off my pocket. As a new grad and a clean, normal non drinker, smoker and worse even drug user I did not see the big deal, plus it was such a small amount too, I waited until I went to the hospital Thursday night and told my charge nurse to please waste this with me and told her the story of what happened. She refused because she could not testify that was a real morphine inside the vial. Well I call pharmacy, pharmacy told me to call Nurse Manager, nurse manager laugh at me and told me she will be in the ER in few min and will waste with me. not till 3am my charge nurse ask another nurse to cover my pot and told me to come with her, I was seat down with two nursing supervisors and the charge nurse in a room and was ask if it was ok to be drug tested. I say no problem, I have nothing to hide, my heart was broken inside already, felt so Intimidated not because of the test result but because I felt like being accusated. OH well the story not ending here I was sent by taxi cab home, like if I was intoxicated.... Now is already wednesday I already missed 2 shifts and couple hours of work, I am getting paid if test comes back normal. But is Wednesday and test is not back and I am feeling so nervous that something is probably going wrong. has this ever happen to anyone? I am going bannanas waiting, I love my JOb and I am a very proud nurse I don't want to loose what took me so long to achieve. :(

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Specializes in Corrections; Advice Nurse.

i think you did the right thing by admitting your mistake.. Don't take it personally that they are drug testing you.. Its stressful waiting but it'll all be over soon.

I had a coworker who began having chronic pain due to an injury and no one realized she was spiraling out of control..

Long story short they found her dead of an overdose in her home 3 days later.. She had been treating pts for months high as a kite...

To this day we all wonder did me miss the signs or turn a blind eye...

Once this is all over they'll look at you w/ a newfound respect and trust you :)

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I Hope so, I know I'm clean. But googling stuff just to add to my stress, false positive test has come out in the back of my mind. But all I take is supplements, so hopefully all this will be over soon.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

If you know that you didn't use a narcotic, then the test will be negative and you will be fine!

This is the second thread recently that basically said "I made a human mistake" (with a narc), "why are they treating me like I'm guilty?" Unfortunately, they (supervisors, etc) have to. I have worked with nurses I never would have guessed would divert narcs--yet, it happens. If a nurse is diverting, the supervisors/managers ignore potential evidence, and just write it up as a "human mistake," and they the diverting nurse causes patient harm as a result of his/her…then everyone is in big doo-doo. To the OP, don't take it personally. It has to be done. Just move on once this is over, and know to be careful.

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I Hope so, I know I'm clean. But googling stuff just to add to my stress, false positive test has come out in the back of my mind. But all I take is supplements, so hopefully all this will be over soon.

Stop Googling. Enjoy your paid time off. We all make mistakes and I'm sure you won't do this again.

Good luck to you!

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Stop googling. Sure screening tests can have a false positive, that's why they do GC/MS confirmation as there is no false positives with that test. It can take a week for results to be completed and returned from a confirmatory GC/MS test. They may run a confirmatory test if negative to be certain that it wasn't a false negative.

I think your main mistake was not notifying as soon as you discovered the vial. This is a systems process error. You will likely have to write up a plan of action as to how to prevent this from happening again. Never put narcotics in you pocket to waste later. Always waste immediately with a witness. Make the time to follow procedures. Make a check list of reminders if you need be. Always check your pockets at the end of a shift and before you leave the floor whether to the bathroom or break. (Some ideas if you are asked to come up with a improvement process)

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I totally have a plan, this won't ever happen to me again. I was trained to medicate and then waste. But the manual say to waste immediately, this is going to be my goal. No more meds on pocket ever again. I am trying to enjoy the time off though is hard to just seat and wait while your coworkers are wondering why your not coming to work.

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I was call today, im on tonight.... :-)

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Just to finish the story, around 2pm yesterday I was called and told my test result was sent to the wrong lab and not to worry that all the days will be reimbursed and test will take another 24 hours. Its was a big surprise that my manager called me same day by 5pm to tell me I was clear and I was on to work the same night. Who knows what really happened, but what matters is that my reputation is clear and I did what I was told, come with my head up and with the best attitude. :) thank you for all your comments and support.

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