Panic attacks following never event.

[Iamgroot29]

I really need help. I am a nurse working in an intensive care unit with 9years nursing experience and approximately four months ago I was involved in a never event at work.

Since this I have done all the required reading, learning etc and had a couple of debriefs with management and everything seemed to be going fine. Yes I had lost my confidence but I was slowly starting to claw it back inch by inch by working hard and throwing myself into my studying.

Now however, things are not going so well again. I was on a study day where the event was discussed between colleagues (no names were mentioned) and my colleagues had some not very supportive things to say. This has made me paranoid that people know it was me and I am panicky at work and dont trust myself to do anything anymore as dont trust my judgement. I am also finding it hard to trust others as this never event included other people giving bad advice (unintentionally).

I am struggling with my work load, with my colleagues and with emergency situations that previously I would of been able to cope with. I am finding it difficult to sleep and keep waking up, having had nightmares about this situation.

I find it very difficult to work with the consultant that investigated the event and I recently had to spend the day on an out of hospital transfer with the doctor who was involved with the event and I desperately wanted to talk to him about it but couldnt bring it up (obviously this was once the patient had been transferred and we were alone in the back of the ambulance).

Any help at this point would be invaluable. I have a meeting with my manager in the next week and I dont want to blurt this all out to her as hate being seen as weak and not coping.

Sorry it has been such a long post. Please help me.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Sentinel events are almost never the result of ONE person making an error; it's usually a chain of errors, and at any point in the chain the event could have been avoided, averted or minimized.

Thank you for sharing, Ruby. Has anyone seen the show "Seconds from Disaster?" It's a NatGeo documentary that features events like the Hindenburg, the Challenger, the 1996 storm that killed 8 people on Mt Everest, various plane crashes, etc. Anyway, the intro to the show starts very similarly to what you say about the chain of errors. Airlines have approached events the same way.

[jayrn07]

Wow. This is a very trying time for you. Therefore I urge you to seek out therapy and do meditations for stress relief, self-confidence, self-esteem and PTSD. You can find them on YouTube. Also consider taking some time off to regroup and rest.

hugs. Hang in there nurse lady.

[Triage24]

Basically what you are referring to as a Never Event is what the majority of your Colleagues call a Sentinel Event.

First of all as unfortunate as these are they do happen. Yours was not the first and sadly it will not be the last.

I have been in Nursing over 20 years. Worked on Step Down, Critical Care Units, Emergency Room Nursing (CEN, CPEN) Hospital Nursing Supervisor, Med/Surg and Pediatric Nurse Manager.

Why do I tell you this? Simple, because I like others have seen these before. They are very serious but they intent and goal of them. It's to identify what went wrong and why and how do we address and fix it. That's it in a nutshell,

Why would it be brought back up. Because it's a lesson learned for The Unit and Facility. Not to attack anyone, in this case you personally.

This incident has clearly affected you, now what did you learn from it? Sometimes our best lessons are the hard lessons. Hate it happened to you but I'm willing to bet something valuable was learned. That's called experience. You don't get that in school.

Now ask yourself do you need a change? Maybe it's time to work in a different area. Nurses are not trees we can move and it's often beneficial to do so. Even in the same Hospital.

Sometimes see a Counselor is very beneficial. I have always liked that approach and have in my career used it, recommended it and have referred Nurses to it if need be.

Wishing you the very best.