What was your dumbest mistake during your intern year?

Started an elderly patient with lots of heart problems and history of ESBL on Meropenem. Was waiting for a respiratory distress ambulance to get there when the nurse ran up and said “your patient is having chest pain, difficulty breathing, and complaining that their throat hurts”. I ran in and examined the patient and thought I heard wheezing, and told the nurse to grab my attending and grab Epi for suspected anaphylaxis. The nurse got everything together and as the attending walked in I said “I gave her Ceftriaxone, I think she’s having an allergic reaction to it”. The attending was examining the patient and came back over to me as the nurse asked me if they should start pulling up the meds for anaphylaxis. I said yes, as my attending simultaneously said “no, get them their Xanax dose and some more Morphine”. Turned out the patient had a history of panic attacks and responded perfectly to the Xanax.

I had never ordered Ceftriaxone because they had a previous anaphylactic reaction to Keflex, and I didn’t realize what I’d said until I got home.

The attending was also my program director and this is the only patient I’ve had with them to this day, because they took the patient as sign out near the end of my shift.

The patient was also in a fib during the duration of this event.

/r/Residency Thread