Quote:
Originally Posted by doydie
.................I was am RN on a cardiac unit. Our main thing was have a patient come in with angina, send them for a cardiac catheterization and then treat as needed. Teaching was my favorite thing, whether it was nurses aide, nursing student, patient or family. I remember this patient coming back from his cath and he needed open heart surgery. The family was asking the names of our surgeons and I couldn't remember a single one of them. I had been an RN there for almost 30 years, had worked with the cardiologists and surgeons most of those years. Then I started forgetting names of the cardiac drugs the patients were taking. I would give the little cup of pills to the patients and he would ask me the names of his pills and I would give him this blank look. That's supposed to make my patients trust my teaching? But 'luckily' for me I had a big exacerbation right after all this happened and I never went back to work. So I never had to make that gut wrenching desicion of having to quit work.
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Sorry to go
just for now, but Doydie's post made me sit up and take notice!
This was the very reason I gave up work as an RN in Critical Care Nursing, in September of last year. I started to forget things so very similar!
I retired immediately (somewhat early I might add) when I noticed the same type of thing happening to me, because I was scared stiff that I might forget something really important like drug calculations or similar, and my forgetfulness might eventually cause a patient to suffer complications or even death.
When you're an RN anywhere, but especially in Critical Care, A&E, Cardiac Units and Pediatrics, we as nurses have a responsibility to others to determine when it's in their best interests (the patients I mean) for us to call it a day as far as our own practice goes.
That's what I did, and of course I miss it, but at least I know I won't kill or injure anyone now.
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