What is the worst mistake you made in the work place?

Just curoius how nurses out there have dealt with mistakes they have made.

so far no med errors (thank goodness), so the biggest error I have made was probably.....not getting the NG suctioning done quick enough on a 2 mo old baby with RSV...he cried so much his face looked like a little tomato..it was awful, i felt so bad...

16 years old - working as a (new)unit clerk in the ER. Told to take MI patient to ICU which was about 10 feet down the hall. He wasn't hooked up to anything and wanted to walk so I walked him to ICU. Never did that again!

Yep - that was me when I was young.

Maybe this post needs to be retitled:

""What's the worst mistake you have seen SOMEONE ELSE make?

The only real mistake I made was a transcription error on a MAR. I screwed up a timing on a narc making it PRN q8 hours vs routine q 8 hours. Okay at least the dosing was right, hours were right, and the pt took them on time!

However...some narcs were missing from his supply, and since I made that tiny mar error...I was up for investigation!!! IT did turn out that a CNA had stolen them and gave them to another CNA who was selling them for food/rent money. I also found it funny that that very day the pills wound up missing in two areas, that we had a new hire CNA working there, and she never came back! Ummmmm and they investigated me???? Oh brother! I solved that one before they did by using common sense and not the blind blame game!!! Oh I was so ticked at the facility and believe me...they knew it, and I became the investigating nurse for all med errors! We never had that probelm again!

But a collegue nurse did give 80 units regular insulin instead of Lantus not once, but twice! Man that patient was sooooooo angry having to go to the hospital! I took it upon myself to color code the insulins and stuck the lantus in a different shelf in our frige so you have to THINK a bit before grabbing the wrong vial! LOL, I got in trouble over that because I didn't clear that through administration first. I told them, that is why these things happen because we don't like having to have a 12 panel non nursing commitee having to gather to discuss color coding vials of insulin for patient safety for GOD's sakes! I won that battle too! (this was an ALF, and everything had to be discussed with the facility board first...even switching a med to the lower shelf in a fridge! OH MY!).

I dont' work there anymore go figure, I took an agency job! LOL!

mistakes happen......i've made plenty.

Maybe this post needs to be retitled:

""What's the worst mistake you have seen SOMEONE ELSE make?

Dont say that. I think that one mistake nurses make is to assume that someone is a bad person or incompetent because they make a mistake. As a new nurse, I have made a mistake recently and was treated as though no one has ever made a mistake. Thank goodness the patient was ok. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take responsability for mistakes but we should go easy on each other because everyone has made them.

The worst mistake i have made happened when i started in theatre. I was only new and the charge nurse pressured me to scrub after hours for a bowel resection. I didn't want to because i had only ever double scrubbed for large cases but they said that there was no one else and they felt that i could do it. So i did. I was yelled at, spoken down to and humilated by the surgeons because i didn't know the instruments that well or how to hand them up properly. I had no idea what i was doing and my only scout was an agency who was not supportive and couldn't care less that i was struggling. Somehow during the case in my state of panic i accidently threw a scalpel blade off my sterile trolley. We searched for it but couldn't find it. I felt so stupid and the unhelpful scout said 'anyone who throws a scalpel blade off her trolley should be shot'. (i did report her for this and she was written up for it).

I can remember feeling so sick and no one in that room supported me. I felt so bad because someone may have suffered an injury looking for it and i knew it was my fault.

I wasn't blamed in the end the charge nurse was for pressuring me to scrub. I still blame myself though and i'm pretty careful now in what i throw off. However, i warn all newbies not to scrub after hours if they are not confident in what they are doing.

Good nurses can make bad mistakes. They are human and often the support systems and safeguards are lacking. I think what is important is sharing those mistakes so that systems can be improved and that we can all learn from them.

My worst mistake was making a co-worker so made at me that when it was time to change an incontinet patient, the co-worker didn't lift with me and I wrenched my back. I ended up on L&I for a month!!! I guess I needed help with my communicatin skills!!!

Be careful when you say you have never made a med error...you may have made one and just don't know it.

One of the stupidest things I've done is give a patient who was complaining of chest pains a nitro tab and telling her to swallow it. I didn't even catch on when she looked at me funny, I just nodded to go on and swallow it. She shrugged her shoulders and swallowed it.

You'd think I'd catch on after the third dose, but I didn't.

Lucky it turned out to be gas and subsided soon after that. I looked down on the MARS and noticed the two little initials (SL) and wanted to just go in the bathroom and scream. I mean, everybody knows that! I could use the excuse that things were hectic and I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off but it's just that: and excuse.