Stupid New Grad mistake, Can I get fired? Please help!

Nurses New Nurse

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One of my patients was scheduled for surgery in the morning and I completely forgot to hold the AM heparin dose. I gave the AM Heparin. Luckily, i realized that I should have held it right before I gave report to the next shift. I paged/called the MD and the day nurse/charge nurse were notified promptly. Luckily, the patient wasn't scheduled for surgery right away in the morning.

Do you think I could get fired for this mistake?

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I am almost positive you wouldn't get fired for this! I accidentally did the same thing the other night, actually, and I'm not really a new grad anymore. You were honest about it and took the right steps. Next time we have someone scheduled for surgery we will make sure to be more mindful about the meds we give :)

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Absolutely!! It's just frustrating that I'm learning when I do the mistakes, and not before the mistakes. Like for example, one time I didn't put the clave on the PICC line and I didn't clamp it, and blood backed out. It was scary and a definite learning experience for me on how to deal with PICCs. But, I am learning so so much every shift and I'm learning so much from all my mistakes!!

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Heparin has a duration-of-effect of four hours. The usual DVT-prophylaxis dose is only 5,000 units. As long as the surgeon was notified that the patient got the a.m. dose there would be plenty of time to plan for the slightly increased risk of bleeding. As errors go, that's a pretty mild one.

Much better that blood backed out of the PICC than air got sucked in! I don't think there's any nurse among us who hasn't gotten blood all over the place at least once.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

In my organization, this would be a 'med error' due to inattention. You'd get a write up and counseling by your manager; talking about what happened, and how to prevent it from happening in the future. You'd have to accumulate a few additional errors that indicate a "pattern of careless behavior" in order to be terminated. The only types of "one of" errors that should warrant termination are those that include deliberate violation of rules or deliberately taking actions that are likely to cause harm to a patient.

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Absolutely!! It's just frustrating that I'm learning when I do the mistakes and not before the mistakes. Like for example, one time I didn't put the clave on the PICC line and I didn't clamp it, and blood backed out. It was scary and a definite learning experience for me on how to deal with PICCs. But, I am learning so so much every shift and I'm learning so much from all my mistakes!![/quote']

I have done this, too!!

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

At my facility we are able to avoid mistakes like this by physicians writing orders for blood thinners to be held and pharmacy taking blood thinners off the MAR for the day of surgery. I like this approach cause if I am absent minded and forget, the fact it is d/c'ed on my MAR will be a red flag

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Specializes in Thoracic Cardiovasc ICU Med-Surg.

Ha. No this is not a firing offense, just an oops, I'll make sure to do it right next time. You absolutely did the right thing and took responsibility for it. None of us are perfect.

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Doctor didn't write an order to hold. So one nurse told me, even though I gave it, it's their fault too technically for not having an order tol hold. It's ok though, I got an update and they said the patient ended up going to surgery hours and hours later. Patient was fine and I didn't get written up or anything. Just definitely learned from this experience that's for sure!!

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Idk. Some places are different. Where I work it would be a write up and your treated like a criminal for a human error lol.

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