Hi nurses of reddit.. I was just wondering if this is being too honest/open, but during a job interview you're often asked "what is an example of a time you made a mistake?" If I were to answer honestly, one of the biggest examples I can think of is when I made a med error and gave the wrong person medication. I was not used to doing two patient IDs, having worked at a hospital before we always did wristband scanning to verify. People were roomed separately and sometimes could not answer who they were/DOB due to coma, etc.. I made this error in a communal setting, patients are in a large dorm with twin size beds a few feet apart from each other. We go out to give them meds, and as I was new to this setting, I wasn't used to doing the patient IDs. It also wasn't really taught as part of the whole process there. So I approached who I thought was the right person and said "are you (first name, last name)?" and they said yes. So I gave them the med, even educated them what it was, went back to my desk to chart, and from looking again at their profile I realized it WAS NOT the right person. I told the person orienting me, and they said to take a moment and collect myself and notify the provider (immediately I was scared to death). I did that, the patient was thankfully fine and we just did hourly O2 checks for 5 hours. I informed the patient of the error and what our protocol would be, and what effects they could expect. I was really scared to death, and thankful the patient was OK. The person orienting me said not to worry about it because med errors do happen there often (this made me very uncomfortable working there, for a while). I was a nurse for 2 years at this point and had never made a med error. But what I learned from that is retraining myself to do the 2 patients ID, and having them tell me, instead of asking them to just confirm something. The facility also rolled out a wristband system with the patient name & DOB after a while there, because med errors like that kept happening. I explain all this just because it's what I would say in an interview... though even thinking about it now gives me a lot of anxiety. Would you mention this kind of thing applying for a new job? I could see it going either way, like "med errors should never happen", or them seeing that I immediately reported it and acted appropriately to correct my mistake.   submitted by   /u/Signal-Telephone-734 [link]   [comments]