Mistakes: Shift Happens

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As a new nurse, making mistakes like a med error has always been the source of the majority of my anxiety while at work. The mere thought of making a med error is what keeps all new grad nurses up at night.

“Was their blood pressure too low for that beta blocker?”

“Did I remember to check their platelet count before administering that heparin??”

At times nurses appear to be superhuman, and some days we have to be to get through a shift. But at the end of that day, we are still just human, and mistakes happen.

It doesn’t make you any less of a good nurse. Just know that you will never make that same mistake twice and that it was a learning experience if nothing else. I’m not writing this to say stop having anxiety over possibly making a med error.

As they taught us in nursing school: “There is such a thing as a healthy level of anxiety. At times it even facilitates learning.” However, getting past this normal level of new grad anxiety was a challenge in itself.

Try throwing a global pandemic into the mix, and all of the new, in-trial, and non-FDA approved drugs into the mix. Drugs that even the more experienced nurses on the unit have never heard of.

Although we are still in the thick of this pandemic, when I look back at where I was as a nurse 8 months ago, I can confidently say that the anxiety of making a mistake is what got me to the place I am today as a new grad.

I’ve made some mistakes along this journey, but you know what? I learned from them and will never make those same mistakes twice. Not only that, but I can also teach the new, on-boarding, grads the lessons that I learned from my own mistakes.

At the end of the day, if your patients are okay and breathing, you are doing the right things as a new grad nurse. You can either beat yourself up for life over a mistake you made on the floor, or learn from it and never let it happen again.

Thinking about the possibility of med errors probably has you thinking about malpractice insurance, and whether you should get a policy for yourself. That is a story for another time. Just know that as a new grad you are just doing your best.

Your best is all you can do, so just keep learning, especially when “shift happens”.