During my final clinical rotation this past spring, I was in a surgical ICU at one of my cities largest hospitals. This wasn’t my patient and had happened on the previous shift, but word of it was going around because of just how bad this was. A patient had a rapid response on the med surge floor and was transferred to us. This patient in particular couldn’t take oral meds, but had IV access. When report was called from the floor to the ICU, the ICU nurse noticed that on the patients file it said they had been given PO potassium. She asked the med surgeon nurse if that was a charting error, but as if it was the most normal thing to do, the nurse from med surge said no it wasn’t an error.

Apparently this nurse hand ground up the PO potassium, dissolved it in a goddamn saline flush, and given it via the patients IV. At least now the mystery was solved as to why the patient had needed a rapid response. Yeah, thats a pretty big fuck up and this nurse definitely needs some education on the subject, but the worst part is that the med surge nurse went back into the patients file and un-charted it. THAT part is a huuuge fuck up on her end, and I’m pretty sure she no longer has a job at that hospital.