What To Do After You've Made A Mistake

It's not always easy. I don't ever want to do it. But being honest after I've made a mistake somehow makes it easier to bear. Thanks for your post.

Have made more than a few mistakes, but I always own up. It is always the right thing to do

Do you think it is possible that she was panicking and was substituting 1 milligram for 1 milliliter in her mind when she pushed the meds and never even realized that she made a mistake?And laughter is a nervous response of some people when they know that they have done something wrong, its doesn't always mean that they think the situation is funny, or that they are not sorry.

Sheesh, I make a mistake, I tell EVERYONE. Better for my colleagues to learn from my mistakes than for them to have to make the same one.

What bothers me the most is the mistakes we don't realize we made..........I had a nurse once walk down a hall hanging IVPB's a she went, which was fine, as it were, until I answered a beeping IV and found she had hung the wrong meds on almost everyone 7-8 pts.... Thank goodness no one was harmed...but........I still remember my first med error as a CMT, and practically all my others, because, yes, I have made errors, I am human, I have learned. DO NOT trust the nurse who says she has NEVER made an error, She hasn't admitted to it, yet.

Best advice ever. Sometimes people are reluctant to own up because a manager or the health care facility can be punitive. Nobody wants to make a mistake. It can be devastating. Management could have appropriate education following an error. The institution could have a review of errors, in a non punitive environment, so everyone could benefit. This could improve employee morale and patient care.

I also want to add something to Ruby Vee's excellent post.Never forget to learn from your "almost" mistakes, too. You know the ones...where you almost make a mistake, but catch it just in time. As a student, I've made a more "almost" mistakes than actual mistakes because I have someone watching over my shoulder, and those are very important to reflect on also.

We all do mistakes , Me too , but we have to learn from ours mistakes

It's ethically correct to admit the mistake that occurred, and it also gives a chance to quickly correct the problem. I just think it's difficult to be completely truthful about the mistake if you know that your superiors will never forget the mistake you've done. It's hard to move on when they keep on reminding you of the mistake you did. Even if there was no harm that beset the patient or it didn't kill the patient they would still remember it and bash it in your face right after you've made another mistake of a different kind. The honesty is the easy part, but its the moving-on which is the part of the cycle that is most difficult. Specially, when the one's that you've confided the truth are also not in support of your efforts to move on.I also agree that not moving on will predispose you to more mistakes in the future.. Thanks you for the post.

I'll never forget my very first mistake. I gave 1000mg of Tylenol for pain to a resident and accidentally signed off on the "500mg for pain prn" order. ugh!!! i felt like i messed up the entire mar. but i fixed it.:smackingf:

Great post!When I first started working as a ward clerk on my hospital's busy med/surg floor a few years ago, I had the pleasure of being trained by a very competent coworker who taught me a couple of very simple, yet effective things:1.) "If you don't know the answer, FIND IT." All of our hospitals calls went straight to one of two ward clerk desks on our unit (and most of the time, we only had one working). All KINDS of questions were asked. She told me my job was to give people answers and make things happen. My question to her was "If you don't know the answer, what do you do?" She said, "If you don't know the answer, find it." This one baffled me for a long time, until I realized I would rather call lab (or x-ray, or CT, or dietary, or the nurse, or the doc etc) a million times to politely and patiently make sure I was entering orders correctly rather than guess without confidence; at the least delaying treatment and at the worst, injuring or even killing them.2.) "There are almost no mistakes you make that cannot be fixed." Just knowing that most of what I did, although very different from nursing, was reversible (even if it wasn't easy) let some pressure off. Hand in hand with this information, she also taught me the same things your post discusses. If you make a mistake: recognize it, acknowledge it, and immediately find a way to rectify the situation. I have tried to do this in all of my work (as a med/surg floor CNA, a med/surg floor ward clerk, an ER mental health tech, an ER tech, and an ER ward clerk) ever since. I am very grateful for her (and your!!) advice, and I hope to always keep these main ideas in mind as I will hopefully soon be starting a nursing program and most likely making lots of new mistakes!

we are all humans and we commit mistakes.. Through mistakes, it teaches us to learn from our everyday experiences in the nursing filed.