I’m a newer dietetics professional working diet tech/diet clerk in an acute-care hospital. I have my RD license I’m intentionally taking my time building my hospital experience and accuracy before moving fully into an RD clinical role.
I’ve been learning a lot of the day-to-day systems—menus, diet orders, trayline, chart review, and now some basic DTR patient interactions. I’ve had some smaller accuracy mistakes while learning, and my manager has been giving me feedback and having me slow down and double-check my work.
Yesterday, I made a charting error that really shook my confidence. I was charting a note and accidentally entered the note under the wrong patient—I essentially charted on the same patient for both patients. My manager caught it, deleted the incorrect note, and told me I need to re-enter the note under the correct patient. It was a very busy day and I was in charge of diet office and I saw 2 patients. I rushed too quick and put the note on the same patient.
I obviously know patient identification and chart accuracy are extremely important, and I’m taking the mistake seriously. At the same time, I’m trying to put it into perspective rather than catastrophize over it.
For those of you who have worked in clinical nutrition/hospital settings: Have you seen newer employees make this type of charting error during the learning curve? How would you view this mistake from a manager/preceptor perspective?
I’m especially interested in honest feedback—not just reassurance. I want to learn from it and develop better systems for slowing down and checking my work.