Misdiagnosis

Specialties NP

Published

Have you ever misdiagnose a patient? And if so, how do you say it to them? I was talking to one of the physicians in our office and she said don't worry. It happens. That's why it's called "practice". I'm sure she meant it as a joke to make me feel better but I feel awful.

Wow, Thank you Jules for the breakdown. Are the programs lacking the educational experience due to the lack of preceptors?

Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.
Probably.

I think most psych patients are or have been misdiagnosed. Our diagnoses are very ambitious and subjective regardless of the DSM. Most clinicians don't read it anyway.

The word I wanted was ambiguous, not ambitious.

I hate autocorrect.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Wow, Thank you Jules for the breakdown. Are the programs lacking the educational experience due to the lack of preceptors?

That is just one of the problems and it isn't so much the number of preceptors as the quality. My biggest complaints about nursing education once I got past my Associate's degree are lack of hard sciences and the plethora of nursing fluff courses such as Perspectives in Advanced Hand Holding etc. these waste valuable time and money. That schools are ignoring the basic premise the NP profession was built on which was the solid nursing background in exchange for the number of years med school requires and experience in the specialty are the most significant factors that imo weaken our education. Schools now also seem to admit anyone who can pay the tuition bill its no longer a competitive field which has to result in a reduced quality over the long term.

Specializes in Outpatient Psychiatry.
Wow, Thank you Jules for the breakdown. Are the programs lacking the educational experience due to the lack of preceptors?

There aren't a lot of good instructors and NP students generally pick the preceptor. A FNP student could probably spend a good chunk of their limited clinical training in a STD clinic.

Also, many of us don't want to be preceptors. I was this semester and doubt I'll consider it again in the next few years.

Also, NP kids get stuck learning nursing graduate school crap like qualitative research and nursing theory. As a clinician, there's no reason to write papers on Healthy People 2020. That's already researched. We grossly fail to teach clinical medicine, and let's just go ahead and knock the cheese off the cracker. What we're doing is practicing medicine.

Thank you PsychGuy

It happens and it provides a learning opportunity. I feel for the ED physicians and those who work primary care as they are faced with everything and have a higher likelihood of misdiagnosing. I see more of the failure to rule out differential DX and settling on the easiest diagnosis possible when seeing referrals from family or IM. However, they knew enough to refer and that reflects far better than just settling with their primary consideration.

Mistakes will always occur as we are people in the practice of medicine and as people we are prone to make mistakes. Hopefully, we rule out the red flags and miss the small things...

+ Add a Comment