Should I be Scared?

okay... I work in an allergy clinic. With allergy shots people have specific schedules. Most of our patients get Sched E with vial 5...

Anyway, I drew up someones shots and I automatically assumed sched E so I drew up 0.25... well the patient looked at it weird and said No 0.3 I'm on Sched D. It confused me and I was like okay its .3 but I gave him the 0.25 shot so it was less then he was supposed to get. Well after he left the room I realized what I did so I called him back and I apologised and said "I'm sorry, you were right and I need to give you 0.05 to equal up your shot so you aren't off sched" Looking back he didn't seem upset or anything and I think he tried to joke with me but when you're mad at yourself things just always seem negative, right??

Well this was Monday and its been on my mind since. I have had a hard time sleeping because I'm really still upset with myself and worried. Tomorrow is allergy day and he will be in again for a shot. I told most of the people I work with what happened.

I feel bad because I don't want him to think that I lied to him.

People at work said not to worry because I said I was wrong and did the right thing. I'm still just so sick about it. What do you think?

Everyone makes mistakes. Don't beat yourself up! I'm sure everyone knows your character there so give yourself a little break!

It was an honest mistake, and no harm was done. It says a lot for you that you admitted you had made a mistake and fixed it. It happens. You really shouldn't beat yourself up over it.

Ease up on yourself. Everybody—EVERYBODY—makes mistakes. But not everybody admits and fixes them. You did.

Everyone is right - Ease up on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes and you fixed yours. I am sure he wasn't happy about having to get another shot, but most people would understand especially since you admitted you made the mistake. When he comes in tomorrow, apologize to him again and you can mention how horrible you have been feeling about it. As someone at work once told me, feeling bad about something is good - it's because you care enough about your job and what you are doing!

I disagree with the other posters. As a nurse, my priority is not to make medication errors. It does happen, as you saw, and we do have to take responsability for it.

However, everywhere I have worked we have had "incident reports". Any time there is a medication error, one is written up. Then there is an official document noting what happened, and it gives us a chance to discuss it and come up with a process to help it not to happen again.

I'm sure you were trying to be careful, obviously, because you did catch the mistake. And that is the truth of most errors I have made, I caught it, I wrote it up, and I came up with a plan to avoid similar errors in the future.

There is no "punishment" attached to the reports, and it does not go in the patient file. It is simply a way of tracking errors to correct the problem.

You need to brainstorm with other staff on how to prevent this mistake from occuring again. You do not need to feel guilty, but being scared of making another mistake is normal. Come up with a plan. (Maybe the charts can have different colored stickers on the front, with the dose noted on it? Blue for Sched D, red for Sched E?)

Best of luck to you, and welcome to the club of imperfect health care professionals!

I was told not to file a report as I was able to correct and give the aditional dosage.

Each patient as different sched for different vials so it will change constantly throught their therapy.

Anyway, the patient was in and wasn't upset.

It was better that I talked to him about it instead of trying to say nothing happened. I had given too little and gave the aditional dosage.

It could have been a lot worse... another nurse here did wrong dose, wrong patient....

... and nothing happened to her....

the nurse I mean.

(patient was okay too)

Originally Posted by Ali012281

(patient was okay too)

Click to expand...

..that´s the Attitude Beth! ...........

IMO:
You can't be perfect 100% of the time and heck you did what you thought was right at the time. Imagine what would've happened if you listened to the patient and gave him the wrong dose and something bad happened. thankfully that didn't. You did what you thought was right. You're only human. things turned out correct and noone was harmed. Who could ask for a better ending???