Admitting Mistakes

[Marie63]

I posted back in February 25, 2019, "Mistake". I still am having difficulty many times with moving on and letting go. I heard a podcast recently that I thought is appropriate for nurses, even though the podcast was directed toward medical students and physicians. We all have the same goal, providing the best care possible to our patients, and one of the most important ways is to admit that we made a mistake. And to start with nursing students while in school, management being available and supportive of their staff, and coworkers being honest and helpful to each other. When I was in nursing school, not once did we talk about WHEN you make a mistake, it was all about "preventing" errors. I felt like I couldn't make ANY mistakes and I had to know everything, otherwise I was an incompetent nurse. We learned how to complete an "Incident Report". Mistakes happen, but at least for me, I felt like I was the only one and I would look stupid if I admitted it. Also, units are so busy, it would be helpful for a nurse to have a quick, simple and supportive way of reporting his or her error. I am not excusing my negligence of not reporting my error, it is just the opposite, I feel TOTALLY responsible. But it sure would help nurses with stress and most importantly, increase safe, quality care to our patients if we could open up to each other about our mistakes. My current place of work has a Blue Zone program, talking about exercise, eating right etc. Helpful, but yet not helpful, when you are not treating the whole person. How about helping to prevent guilt and shame along with all the other health issues of diabetes, heart disease etc? Here is the podcast that I think would be helpful for nurses.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-academic-medicine-podcast-30966263/episode/I-need-you-to-forgive-yourself-48208202/?embed=true

[guest1008923]

Currently listening to the podcast now. Thank you for sharing and for being so open ❤

[Runner86]

Marie63…I listened To this podcast yesterday. Thank you for posting. I have Struggled with something similar for years. Have you been able to find any support or support groups? 

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

After refreshing myself by reading your  Feb 2019 post I remembered it and my initial reaction at the time was Wow this person has been carrying this around for 12 years. Reading through the initial scenario I can't imagine why you felt you could not report your mistake at the time to your supervisor. It doesn't appear that the patient came to any harm so it would most likely only resulted in a review of the five rights and taking care in passing meds. We all make mistakes and as the great Bard is quoted "To Err is human." I have made medication errors but never felt I couldn't just pick up the phone and report them. I remember one in particular where I had given a larger than normal dose of a stimulant medication to a teenager. Realized Immediately what I had done. Assessed my patient and called my supervisor. Who told me to continue to monitor the patient and call the physician to report the error and see if he wanted to make any new orders. It's not common for me to make this kind of mistake and I dreaded calling that doctor. When I reached him I said Dr. So and so I made a medication error. He said YOU made an error. I explained what had happened and my assessment findings and he said "Well I guess he's going to be hyper alert today!" I then had to call the parent who was justifyingly  upset but otherwise understanding. this all happened within like 2 hours of the error and I was able to carry on with my day with no further repercussions.  

That being said it's time to forgive yourself. Understand that making mistakes happens. In fact if you meet a nurse who has been on the job for 10 years or more and says they've never made a medication error it's a safe bet they are lying. 

To have beaten yourself up for 16 years over a med error that did not harm a patient is unreasonable. When I was in Nursing school I was never told errors were unacceptable in fact my instructors said things like when you make a mistake and you will this is how to handle it. 

I am sorry that you felt you had to carry this for so long - but it's time to set this burdon down and forgive yourself I guarantee everyone else involved has. 

Hppy