Should I be afraid to have a patients life in my hands?

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I am about to start nursing school. I am having second thoughts. The responsibility of being a registured nurse scares me. What if I make a medication error and the patient dies? Sometimes I make stupid little mistakes at my office job when I'm multi tasking. I work in a busy office doing customer service and administration for a family owned plumbing company. Sometimes, if I make a mistake, I look back and I can't even fathom how I did that, or wrote the wrong thing down. This rarely happens to me at work, but when I'm juggling a bunch of tasks, it does tend to happen. As a nurse, this won't be acceptable. The fact of going to prison for making mistakes on the job, or harming an innocent patient by accident scares me. Doess anyone else feel thing way about nursing? Thanks

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It is a scary thought. I have had them myself. We aren't perfect, and I know mistakes will happen, I just pray that they will not be fatal mistakes. The question is, will you regret not going to nursing school because of this fear? Will you look back 40 years from now and say Dang, why didn't I just go to nursing school? Has this been a dream of yours? And if so, are you ok with giving up that dream? We can not decide that for you. Only you can decide how big this dream is and how much you are willing to give to it. Good luck my friend.

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Hon, this is why you're going to go to nursing school, to learn how to practice safely. It would be a heckuva thing if accredited schools of nursing always turned out people who were prone to doing dangerous stuff and going to jail for it, wouldn't it? :)

Have some faith in your faculty's commitment to see that you'll learn what you'll need to learn, think more realistically about the odds, and relax a bit. Not too many of us have actually gone to prison for killing people through distraction or carelessness. :) I promise you that in five years you'll come across your post and chuckle.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, OB/GYN, Informatics, Simulation.

I have the same fears you do (except I'm already done with school!). I'm sure it gets better, and personally I see things this way : you're worried you'll make a mistake and you'll probably be overly cautious. I know one girl in my program who feels like she knows everything already about nursing, and I'm sure she'll make a mistake and be taken down a notch. And like other posters said: mistakes do happen, we're human we just have to hope there silly ones. But if you feel like this is the path you should lead go for it, there's many different areas of nursing to choose from some without direct patient contact.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Maybe some 'big picture' perspective can help alleviate the fear

Health care is extremely complex. Lots of 'moving parts' with many people involved in nearly every activity that involves the patient. It is frequently compared to the airline industry in that respect. In airplanes, safety is supported by the fact that each critical system has at least THREE redundancies. For instance, if the landing gear system fails to deploy, they have a hydraulic back up system - it that also fails, they can go down and manually "crank" the gear down into place.

In health care, we have similar checks and balances built into just about every system. We are expected to follow standardized processes (like the 5 medication administration rights) each time we perform a task. The more critical or high risk a procedure is, the more safety checks it has... like the multiple safety procedures associated with all surgical procedures.

The MOST important "safety net" we have in health care is the obligation of each and every person to intervene whenever he/she notices a problem.... like assembly line workers who can "stop the line" when a problem occurs. This means that we all have an obligation to act when something happens - or is likely to happen. We are all accountable for keeping the patient safe, and the bedside nurse is normally the final link in that safety chain. Whenever an error is made - or prevented - we MUST report it. That's the only way that we can continually improve the system.

So - rest assured, if you make a medication error, it is likely to be caught very quickly before the patient is harmed. Afterwards, you will be expected to participate in the analysis of why that mistake was made. If it was "just" your mistake, you will be expected to learn from it, but you probably won't be punished unless it was due to a deliberate choice on your part... ex: not following the policy/procedure.

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Thank you, HouTx! I really do have a passion to help people heal. You're right, I know that it will be up to me to follow all policys and procedures in the health care field, and as a team. I'm excited to do this, I just know it's a lot of responsibility and I shouldn't let fear of the unknown stop me. I'm hoping I can find the right department of nursing that I'll be best at, but I'll never know until I start school and get some experience.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

You do not have that much power. You can attempt to control a death or you can cause a death, but ultimately, you are not in charge.

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Specializes in L&D.

I think a bit of fear is a healthy thing. If you are a nurse, and you ARENT scared of hurting someone, I'd be afraid for you to be my nurse! it keeps you cautious and makes sure you do all the checks and balances that prevent YOU from causing a death/incidence.

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Specializes in ED.

Being a nurse is scary, but you are never alone. You have coworkers, your charge nurse...anytime you are unsure, you will have people to fall back on. I work in an ED, and it is SCARY sometimes, but I have so many resources. The teamwork in my department is my favorite part of the job, I ALWAYS have someone I can talk to if I am unsure about something, I'm never alone. And the fact that you are concerned about making mistakes is a very good thing!

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That's why the turnover rate in nursing is 1/3 or 33% within the 1st 2 years post grad. About 17.5% of new nurses will leave their 1st job within the 1st year or leave the industry completely. This doesn't factor in new nurses who are fired from their 1st job due to med errors, among other things such as poor attendance. Nursing has 1 of the highest turnover rates in the country, comparable to the fast food or retail industry. At least in those areas, you're not dealing with people's lives or feces. Nurses also don't get paid enough in my opinion for the stress they have to go through. You really need bones of steel in order to survive in this profession. You also just have to hope and pray that you don't accidentally kill someone by accident. Mistakes are unfortunately unavoidable, your bound to make a mistake at some point, you are human after all.

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