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Discussion

scapegoating without intention

Recently I had an incident that I feel lousy about. I went to change a patient's slow healing, old surgical drsg...no drsg trays! Charge nurse tells me we are no longer cleaning the wound, it's a "dry drsg". I was uncertain about the no cleaning thing, but went with it. A few hours later I was handing over report and the receiving nurse said the drsg was wrong, you always clean a wound like this. I took the drsg off and re-did it. I had to chart the re-dress and state why it was done twice that evening. I read my charting and it totally looked like I blamed the charge nurse and stated my own poor confidence in my previous decision making! I crossed the charting out and did it more appropriately, but you can't completely cross the old charting out legally! So now my bad charting is available for all to read. I am worried my co-worker I think I was blaming HER for MY error. I meant to document that we just discussed it, but I shouldn't have done that either. Ahhh! Any advice.

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deleted. Sorry.

Know its hard to do, but try not to beat yourself up over it. We've all (think I'm safe in saying this) charted something that came out sounding all wrong. And oh, how I've wanted to spill something on the awful note so as to blot out what I said. But instead all you can do is draw that single line through it that only serves to catch everyone's attention even more. :chuckle

I now try to think through what I'm going to say before actually writing it down. This helps me from starting a sentence and realizing that it is not going in the direction I wanted. Hard when you're busy but beats having to write it over again.

But I'd go to your co-worker and explain that you didn't mean to sound like you were blaming her - it just turned out wrong. I'm sure she will see your sincerity and it will be forgotten.

We all make mistakes, so don't beat yourself up about it. Apparently the receiving nurse had more information than the charge nurse.

Did you actually write in the patient's chart about your interaction with the charge nurse? I was taught that that type of thing should not be part of the medical record.

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[Did you actually write in the patient's chart about your interaction with the charge nurse? I was taught that that type of thing should not be part of the medical record]

Interesting, I was taught that you should always include names of anyone professional you consult in care, and the charge nurse is one of those resources. It was so busy, and I was 1hr late getting off my shift. In hindsight I wish I would have spent more time thinking about the entry before just jotting down what came to me. I am going to call the co-worker today and give her a heads-up and an explanation. We are good acquaintences, I would hate to ruin that. As soon as I reread my entry my heart sank, I wanted to tear the whole thing into peices! It didn't come right out and blame her, but it could certainly be interpretted that way:uhoh3: .

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