Posted on Mar 31, 2022
Nurses: Guilty verdict for dosing mistake could cost lives
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Responses: 2
Come on, nurses work exorbitant hours trying to do their job. Mistakes occur not like when Governor Cuomo put the elderly back in the nursing homes with covid. I don't want to go too much into my medical problems but I prefill my insulin syringes with two kinds of insulin indifferent syringes of course. One time I went into the wrong part of the refrigerator which I do not mark my insulin it's pretty much the same container, anyway I injected myself with the long lasting insulin versus the short acting. I've been doing this for about a year now and I just happened to grab the wrong insulin, a mistake. It didn't kill me, but I still made the mistake and grabbed the wrong insulin syringe. Mistakes happen nurses are not infallible neither doctors
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This pisses me off. As a father of a nurse I can tell you that they are overworked and grossly underpaid for what they do. They put up with demanding and rude doctors, angry patients patients that don't do what they have asked them to do, and hospitals and clinics that will throw them under the bus every time they get a chance only to save their own skin. Doctors are with patients for only about 15 minutes a day unless surgery etc. The nurses are the ones that are with them the entire hospital stay. The mistake she made was wrong and she owned it from the beginning...never shied away from it and they are using that against her. Were there methods in place to prevent it, yes. By allowing nurses to use the override was that acceptable unless it was a two man review and check? NOPE. When dispensing medicatiio9ns especially after an override there needs to be a two step verification. At the worst she should only receive a loss of license. She should not warrant jail time for this. Vanderbilt has a lot of this on their shoulders as well but they will never admit to that...she was their scapegoat! We have rapist, drug dealers, DUI's that get less sentences than this possibility. Mistakes and accidents happen. “Best estimates are 7,000-10,000 fatal medication errors a year. Are we going to lock them up? Who is going to replace them?” said Bruce Lambert, patient safety expert and director of the Center for Communication and Health at Northwestern University.
But I hope to think I would be like the victims grandson, "Recently, while buying farm supplies, she was talking with the young man behind the counter when he recognized her, and told her he was Murphey’s grandson. Instead of reproaching her, he ended up comforting her and patting her on the shoulder, she said. “He was so kind. He was so incredibly kind,” Vaught said. “I took his grandma away, and he just kept telling me to take care of myself. There are good people in this world.”
I will tell you that a Doctor prescribed, a nurse put in, and the pharmacy filled a prescription for a antibiotic that I am highly allergic to. I didn't recognize the name as it was a generic and I took it...broke out in hives from head to foot. When I called the doctors back they panicked...I told them it was ok and that I took Benadryl and we just needed to get a different med. Mistakes happen. Only one person that has ever walked this earth was perfect and He died on a cross so that one day I can join Him...everyone else makes mistakes.
But I hope to think I would be like the victims grandson, "Recently, while buying farm supplies, she was talking with the young man behind the counter when he recognized her, and told her he was Murphey’s grandson. Instead of reproaching her, he ended up comforting her and patting her on the shoulder, she said. “He was so kind. He was so incredibly kind,” Vaught said. “I took his grandma away, and he just kept telling me to take care of myself. There are good people in this world.”
I will tell you that a Doctor prescribed, a nurse put in, and the pharmacy filled a prescription for a antibiotic that I am highly allergic to. I didn't recognize the name as it was a generic and I took it...broke out in hives from head to foot. When I called the doctors back they panicked...I told them it was ok and that I took Benadryl and we just needed to get a different med. Mistakes happen. Only one person that has ever walked this earth was perfect and He died on a cross so that one day I can join Him...everyone else makes mistakes.
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MSgt Steven Holt, NRP, CCEMT-P
Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth, Well said sir. As a Paramedic, I know all to well how easy it is to grab the wrong medication without realizing it. It happens despite our best intentions to provide top quality patient care. What concerns me the most is I believe nurses (and Paramedics!) will be less likely to report errors if they feel they will be prosecuted like Ms Vaught was. We've struggled for years to change the culture of hiding mistakes and get providers to report so we can improve our processes. This conviction will serve no purpose other than to set those efforts back 20 years and make it even more difficult to enact systemic changes that will make positive improvement.
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Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth
MSgt Steven Holt, NRP, CCEMT-P - I agree...it would have been easy for this nurse to turn the other direction and walk away and no one would have been the wiser. No one wants to report that they made a mistake but if process and patient care are going to get better it has to happen and hospitals/clinics etc have to stop shooting folks at dawn for mistakes. What they can do is suspend for a period of time, retrain, and the put under the supervision of someone else until at such time they feel they are ready to be cut loose again...instead of gathering a woodpile to burn the witch.
I want to thank you personally for being a Paramedic...you have to make split second decisions just like a physician to keep someone alive. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but you have a very difficult job and I appreciate each and every one of you for what you do...and yes you folks are more than anyone else woefully underpaid for the $#+ you have to put up with. My daughter was a trauma surgery nurse for a couple of years and now she works in an ER and loves her medics. Take care my warrior brother and stay safe out there.
I want to thank you personally for being a Paramedic...you have to make split second decisions just like a physician to keep someone alive. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but you have a very difficult job and I appreciate each and every one of you for what you do...and yes you folks are more than anyone else woefully underpaid for the $#+ you have to put up with. My daughter was a trauma surgery nurse for a couple of years and now she works in an ER and loves her medics. Take care my warrior brother and stay safe out there.
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