Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Today I took out a new girl into the field. Her name is Mary, and she's an RN. She was very active in the anti-Vietnam War radical movement. She told me she had been arrested five times and was very proud of it. One time was because she and a girlfriend chained themselves to an Embassy building in D.C. Her fiancee died in Vietnam. We talked politics for a little while, and I showed her the Wellstone book I was reading. She regaled me with tales from the 60s, which was awesome.
I'm slowing letting this weekend get out of my system. There is no one person to blame for the whole thing. The problem should have been discovered before the weekend. None of the nurses from Hospice, including myself, who saw the patient were informed by the staff that the patient needed any refills. But none of us throroughly checked the medication administration record for nursing initials, which indicate that a medication was given. This one had a bunch of blank areas. I did look at the record, and I did see the order, but I did not look at the initials because I TRUSTED that the facility would give a medication that was scheduled to be given, and if any problems arose, they would call us as promptly as possible before 2:15 in the morning on Sunday, which is when the problem was discovered. So it was a big cluster fu--. Leslie also, while reinforcing no one was perfect, stated it was something to work and grow on. So I'm over it.
I'm slowing letting this weekend get out of my system. There is no one person to blame for the whole thing. The problem should have been discovered before the weekend. None of the nurses from Hospice, including myself, who saw the patient were informed by the staff that the patient needed any refills. But none of us throroughly checked the medication administration record for nursing initials, which indicate that a medication was given. This one had a bunch of blank areas. I did look at the record, and I did see the order, but I did not look at the initials because I TRUSTED that the facility would give a medication that was scheduled to be given, and if any problems arose, they would call us as promptly as possible before 2:15 in the morning on Sunday, which is when the problem was discovered. So it was a big cluster fu--. Leslie also, while reinforcing no one was perfect, stated it was something to work and grow on. So I'm over it.
