What is your greatest fear in nursing.

Nurses General Nursing

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My hard working peers, my greatest fear in nursing is giving the wrong medication to a patient in error, resulting in the death of the patient. What is your greatest fear related to nursing?

Specializes in Interested in Oncology and/or Pediatrics.
Have you ever woken up in the morning and had cobwebs in your brain? Had a few cups of coffee, gotten your blood pumping, but still find yourself having brain farts?

This has to be my biggest fear - when all of the information crammed into my head from school becomes incompatible within my memory cache and causes a runtime error during a critical situation. Sorry about the computer speak, but I feel more like a computer than a human these days! :rolleyes:

As I was charting in the corner, I thought that I heard the pt's HR steadily dropping, and went over to the monitor to see what was going on. Sure enough, the pt was bradying down. I immediately alerted the Gnarly Wakeboard Master Supreme to this finding, and I tell ya, he couldn't find his butt with both hands.
:lol2::lol2:
Specializes in LTC, Med-Surge, Ortho.

My biggest fear is that I could get fired, since nurses are easily replaced these days.:idea:

Not being able to find another job, this last job hunt was really scary and I was out of work for 5 months. I'm afraid of not being able to pay my bills and ending up not being able to take care of my dog, having to give him to a shelter cause they don't allow dogs in the human shelters...I'd probably live on the street before I gave my dog away...unless he was going hungry or cold and miserable.

Doing the wrong thing and killing somebody.

Specializes in pediatrics, public health.

In my job as a hospital nurse, my biggest fear was making a mistake that would harm or kill a patient. I was especially afraid that I wouldn't recognize that a patient's condition was deteriorating quickly enough to call a rapid response or code in a timely fashion. Thankfully these fears were never realized.

In my current job as a PHN I'm not doing direct patient care any more, so now my biggest fear is losing my job and not being able to get another one --especially since, having been away from direct patient care for over a year now, the pool of nursing jobs for which I would be qualified or considered a desirable candidate has significantly decreased. I am afraid that GOD FORBID, I would have to try to pick up a job in my previous field, even though I hated it. Let's hope this fear never comes to pass either!

Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

I cause a death.

Specializes in LTC.

Missing subtle signs of distress and doing anything that leads to a patient's death.

My biggest fear? Everything. (Can you tell I'm a new grad?) :chair:

Specializes in Cardiovascular, ER.

Well mine came true.... I didn't cause the death, but the death of a young person for no apparent reason. A frequent flyer in the ER for pain meds. They got their pain meds, then coded never to be revived. No apparent reason. Wow. Goes to show you never know when you roll your eyes when a freq flyer walks in the door.

That things will never get better.

Specializes in Emergency Medicine.
I didn't cause the death, but the death of a young person for no apparent reason. A frequent flyer in the ER for pain meds. They got their pain meds, then coded never to be revived. No apparent reason.

Reminds me of a patient that came to the ER many years ago (frequent flier) that had burned out all her veins. She had the typical back pain, abdominal pain, headache we can't prove you're wrong type pain. Seems she just couldn't get her "fix" anymore so she was really there for us to establish an IV. Her pimp/dealer/boyfriend met her in the bathroom to give her her crushed oxycontin/heroin/meth injection. Problem was we had already given her a good frequent-flyer dose of Demerol/Phenergan she came in begging for...

She never made it out of the bathroom. He went to jail. It might be scary for me if I really thought about it or didn't believe in Darwin's Theory.

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

What is my greatest fear in nursing? I fear the day if (or when) RNs will no longer be needed in healthcare.

The deskilling of nursing has been occurring for quite some time: phlebotomists to draw blood, medication aides to administer meds in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, patient care assistants who are allowed to insert Foleys, wound care teams that consist of physical therapists, CNAs who do finger stick blood sugars and vital signs, medical assistants who perform advanced skills in doctors' offices, pharmacy techs who mix meds, rehab techs who ambulate patients, lay people who do the staffing and scheduling for hospitals, and so forth.

Healthcare facilities are always on the hunt for cheaper alternatives to the RN because our labor costs are enormous.

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