Stressed, keep making mistakes!

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I have been so stressed lately, it seems like one thing after another. I have been nursing for about a year but only working at my current location for about 4 months. Its a small inpatient unit of 10 beds and 4 ER beds. At night or after 3pm there is only 1 RN and 1 LPN on.

Lately it seems I have been making small meds errors. For instance the other day I started a pantoloc drip and the policy called for 120mg in 250ml ns bag, I put it in a 500ml bag and had it running at 4mg/hr when it was suppose to be 8mg/hr. I had double checked the ns bag and could have sworn it said 250ml.

Its making me frusterated knowing I made this mistake. Another one was that I over looked when an antibiotic was due when looking at the MAR and so the pt missed the dose.

I am feel like maybe I shouldnt be nursing if all I do is make stupid mistakes. I always try and take my time. I am stressed and so discouraged with myself.

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Your error with the drip is an error of distraction, which is understandable (but not okay) under the circumstances you describe. Two nurses for 14 beds, some of which are new patients who will have urgent medical needs doesn't sound great.

Just the same, you have to prioritize with that in mind so that you can be mindful when administering medications. When you are doing a high-risk task such as medication preparation/administration, you must be able to concentrate fully on that task at hand and for that two minutes (or whatever) not allow yourself to worry about what else needs to be done. I would say you were fairly distracted if your brain didn't tip you off that you had a bag in your hand that was twice as big as what you needed. KWIM? Programming the pump was a second chance to glance at the bag again and enter the correct volume information into the pump or redo using the appropriate bag.

Take some time to review your basic plan/approach. Make some tweaks in how you might be able to plan differently in order to feel less pressured when doing high-risk tasks. Then, as best you can, put this behind you so that stress-error-more stress-more errors doesn't become a cycle. Shore up your plan, recommit to being mindful, then go for it/make it happen. :nurse:

Good luck~

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Slow down if possible and double and triple check everything

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Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
Slow down if possible and double and triple check everything

And don't forget to breath!

Hppy

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