Prevention of Medical Errors

On last Thursday's ER, Dr.Carter was about to receive a kidney transplant and the whole surgery suite was rush-rush. Dr. Benton stopped the surgical team in order to go over a safe surgery checklist. He was berated by the surgeon for slowing things down and was told that it was not needed. Dr. Benton insisted and during the checklist, it was brought out that a fluid was missing. The surgeon said that they would not need the fluid, but nursing said that they would get it anyway. As the surgery progressed, there was a complication and the fluid was necessary to preserve the kidney and thus, make the surgery a success. Dr. Benton drove home the point that safety checklists are there for a reason and the reasons are good and valid.

I immediately thought of the five rights of medication administration. Too frequently, nurses bypass this crucial checks and balance safety checklist and the result is a medication error. Thank goodness, most of the time the error has no long term effect on the patient, but occasionally the result is death or serious harm. Nurses care for their patients and to cause harm is horrible and not something any nurse wants to go through.

So, even if it seems like a waste of time, you must take the time to do the safety checklists. Bypassing even one step could result in something tragic that you will have to live with for the rest of your life.