Cover your workers, don't set them up for failure.

My wife as I have said before is a ER nurse at another hospital and she came home the other night just a little bit distraught about something that happened at work where a couple good points or we can say lessons came out that can come into play for all medical professions.

I was night shift and she had a patient who was a child and a very overbearing mother to go along with the child. An I.V. was placed in the patient and it took about 6 nurses and tech's to hold this 8 year old child down who was biting and kicking to get the I.V. done. I.V was finished and blood was drawn.

My wife grabbed the labels off the chart the tech had put on there and labeled the blood tubes and send then to lab. 1o minutes later the lab calls and said they were the wrong labels they were for another patient.

Not good but can be fixed, the patient has a I.V. so we can just draw more. Now lab comes down to draw more blood from the patient and is told to wait a moment so we can get the labels together. Lab does not hold on and goes ahead and throws her fellow workers in front of a truck. This young lab tech goes into the patients room and proceeds to tell the patients mother that the Nurse screwed up the blood and didn't put the correct labels on the tubes.

Good job young lab tech, not mom is irate and comes out of the room into another patients room and starts yelling and dropping the F bomb all over the place to my wife right in front of another patient. Calling her the worst nurse ever, this hospital sucks, I'm taking my child outta here (go ahead), among other colorful things.

Now how could this of been avoided? Of course double checking the labels, yes that is a lesson learned. Also though this lab tech could of easily told the mother that they needed more blood for another test, or that the blood in a tube clotted, anything but YOUR NURSE SCREWED UP, and this could of all be avoided. The patient had a I.V. so there would not be another needle stick at all. Easy fix.

The security was called for a irate parent, the nurse supervisor called the young lab tech and chewed her out and the doctor said nothing was wrong with the patient anyways, plus my wife was upset and said some things to the parent.

What did we learn from this besides checking your labels:

1. Cover the integrity of your fellow employers and the reputation of the hospital if it is possible.
2. Do not set people up for failure, help each other out and things run smoother for everyone.


It's easy, just use you brain and common sense.

Thanks for reading, Drive on RT's.