Tell my your worst experience in medicine administration.

suzanne4, RN · Dec 23, 2006

Just a note of caution to those of you that will post here.

The world wide web is not as anonymous as you think. Please do not post anything that can come back and haunt you.

S.T.A.C.E.Y, LPN · Dec 23, 2006

As a first or second year student I was taking care of a little old lady on a medical floor during my clinical day. When I went in at the beginning of the shift I said hello Mrs X and introduced myself to her. All day long I called her Mrs X, and she responded and never said anything about Mrs X not being her name. Well when it came time to giving meds I was doing all the checks with my instructor, then went into the room to give the lady the med. Checked her ID band, and found that "Mrs. X" wasn't really "Mrs. X".....she had been moved to a different room right before our clinical shift, and no one said anything. The lady I was about to give the med to was a confused little "Mrs. Y".

I was so embarassed that I'd been caring for the wrong lady all night long, and especially that I nearly gave the wrong lady a med.

I have since learned from my mistake and always check ID bands at the beginning of the shift, and especially right before I give meds.

20RN06 · Dec 23, 2006

Just a note of caution to those of you that will post here.
The world wide web is not as anonymous as you think. Please do not post anything that can come back and haunt you.

Thanks for the word of advise. Being new to allnurses.com, we cannot expect anything.

Imafloat, BSN, RN · Dec 24, 2006

When I was a student during my psych rotation I had a patient who had 27 meds. After looking up all meds I wasn't familiar with and checking for possible interactions I went to get them out of the Pyxis. My instructor told me to request them all at the Pyxis and at the end all the drawers would open and I could get the meds. When I was on about med 23 the Pyxis burped and rebooted. Of course there were other students who needed in the Pyxis and then a nurse, so I let them go ahead of me. I entered all the meds again and retrieved them.

I went to the patient with the meds and he refused to take the meds because I had them in the packages still and he said they weren't his meds, his meds always came in a cup, unwrapped. I went and opened all the meds and put them in a cup and on my way back a tech screamed at me to get in the room she was in now (not my patients room), the patient was violently thrashing and sweating like crazy, I immediately thought oh crap, I had to run and find a nurse, thermometer, and dynamap so I just threw the meds in my pocket and ran off to do what I needed to do. Of course my instructor wasn't on the same floor at this time, we were divided onto two floors and she had just spent close to an hour with me and my meds. The unit was short staffed and the doctor and nurses had me doing tasks with the sick patient. I eventually got to my patient's meds but I had to get them out of the pyxis again, because I couldn't give him the meds out of my pocket. After I administered the meds (an hour and a half later) I had to pick through the meds in my pocket and figure out which was which because two were controlled substances. My instructor said it was the first of many crazy days I would have as a nurse.