Guilt. How to Deal With It.

[justbecamearn]

Hi. Im a new nurse but I just made the biggest mistake of my life. I havent been sleeping or eating well and Ive been crying myself to sleep for days now, but it's still not enough to drive the guilt away. My patient died days ago under my care. On hindsight, I think I had a lot of responsibility over his death. I dont know what to do. My colleagues arent being honest with their opinions, I havent spoken to our nurse manager yet but I just want some honesty. And this guilt, I dont know how to deal with it. :CC Help. I want to resign and just quit this profession altogether. :CC

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

First off, deep breath. I am not sure what type of mistake you may have made, we all make mistakes and no one is perfect. It may seem as if you were solely responsible for your patient's death, and without knowing what specific mistake you may have made, it is hard to say, but we are all part of a team. I will say however, it was a mistake, not done intentionally. Please go to a therapist and get some support, get as much support for your emotional well being as you can. I am sorry that this has happend to you.

[LynnLRN]

Its hard to say without more information from you on what you think your role was and where you made the mistake. However, lets do worst case scenario here and say you were some how responsible for not preventing the patients death you have to be able to realize you are human, you will make mistakes and sure there may be awful consequence for certain mistakes but you have to just deal with the consequence and move on. Learn from it, realize you cannot change the past and worrying or feeling guilty about it doesn't change the outcome any so why obsess about it???? Many nurses have made awful mistakes and have had to find another career. It's only the end of the world if you let it be.

[DizzyLizzyNurse]

If you did something to cause a patient's death I'm sure something would have happened to you by now. If you don't want to post more info here, find a nurse you trust and tell them what happened and ask for their judgement. Unfortunately, sometimes people just die. It happens.

[sauconyrunner]

I think you might want to make an appointment and go talk to your manager. DizzyLizzyNurse has a great point, usually if you are somehow responsible, even in the least little way you hear about it and quickly.

You need though to talk to your manager, and get it out and then go on.