Last week I saw a 95 yo patient with a skin graft on the back of his hand. He had orders for a dressing change and ROM and strength.
A little background… I do most of my work with peds and in the schools. I work one day a week at a small rural hospital in their outpatient rehab dept. I usually have like 1-2 pts a week so I’m not as knowledgeable as a CHT who does this everyday.
The patient showed up to the eval with the referral and he wasn’t in our system yet so I had no background information prior to meeting him. Once I do a brief interview and find out what is going on, I tell him and his son that I don’t have that much experience with wound care and our department does not see things like this often. I tell them we will have a nurse look at it as well.
I thought the graft looked really good with no signs of infection and the RN that came in agreed. She told me and my coworker/dept supervisor, a PTA, what we will need for the dressing change. My PTA coworker ran around the hospital collecting these supplies (like I said, our dept doesn’t do these things often) and I started on some measurements (ROM, edema) and showed the pt and his son some simple ROM.
I was very careful while working around his graft but afterwards realized I probably should have waited until the dressing change and it to be covered to do all of this.
I did the dressing change exactly how the RN told me to. Looking back I should have just had her do it right away for me.
You guys, I have had severe anxiety about this… like panic attacks and becoming physically ill. I am so nervous I infected his graft. I know I really have no excuse.. it was my first day back from maternity leave and I’ve been getting limited sleep and I was frazzled because I had no idea what was walking through the door when he got there. Usually I know at least a dx and I can do some research beforehand. I know it’s not an excuse and I really should have known better. I have no idea what I was thinking.. apparently I wasn’t!I feel absolutely awful and stupid and am horrified I am going to get my license suspended or revoked.
He has a follow up with his Dr early this week so I guess I’ll find out then…
What are the chances I messed up so bad that my license is taken away? What do I do?