Most nurses become nurses so that we can help people. At least, I hope that’s why most of us do. We do all kinds of technical scientific brainiac stuff too, but at base, we like making people feel better. However, the profession is getting increasingly stressful. Nurses have more patients who are sicker, and we have to do more with less. We are rushed. We work for hospitals for which reimbursement is now tied to patient satisfaction, which is stressing everyone out because it is so difficult to reconcile that with good medicine—and it adds immeasurably to a nurse’s workload. Ensuring that you provide competent, compassionate care for everyone while also catering to every whim is exhausting.
In this environment of speed, excellence, and “zero tolerance,” mistakes happen. Things go wrong. In my experience, a really bad mistake necessitates multiple parties dropping the ball. However, in nursing, you can make a mistake that doesn’t do any harm to anyone and involves only an obscure policy you violated and someone happened to find out about it and had the time and inclination to write you up, and you end up in just as much trouble as if you had caused patient harm. As a brief aside, I have never understood this aspect of nursing. Doctors can actually kill people and go on practicing, but nurses can commit what amounts to an administrative error and lose their licenses. We know it, too, and the resulting fear adds to the stress of being a nurse. On top of actual patient care, which we have less and less time to even do, we have to dot every “i” and cross every “t” just in case.
So what do you do when you make a mistake? I say “when” because it will happen at some point, nurses being human and all. I have seen the gamut of responses to an error. Some nurses shrug it off. Others take it so much to heart they can barely practice anymore. Some leave the profession or even kill themselves. I was lucky the night I made my first mistake; I had a charge nurse who paraded every other nurse on that shift past my pod to tell me the worst mistake they’d ever made, so I didn’t feel unique. But that was rare luck. Usually, we as a profession don’t talk about our mistakes. We take them personally and berate ourselves. I wish we would stop doing this. It’s like an elephant in the hospital: we all know we are making errors, but no one talks about it, so we all feel alone together.
The first thing to do is resist the urge to cover it up. Lying is never a good idea, and it is even less of a good idea when you are practicing as a nurse. Follow the appropriate protocol for “when stuff goes wrong.” Every hospital has one. Second, adopt the attitude that you are not going to be defensive, no matter what. Hospitals look at this: do you know you messed up? Are you willing to learn from it? Or are you going to point fingers at everyone else and refuse to take responsibility? Our profession is huge on remediation. Third, and possibly most importantly, do not get shaken by it. Making a mistake does not mean you are a bad nurse. It means you made a mistake. Don’t let fear derail you. I have seen nurses make some really bad mistakes and do some really stupid things, and they are still working beside me. I remember that when I get caught up in fear.
What if you have hurt someone as a result of your mistake? I haven’t done that yet. But I hope if I do, I don’t go the way of the nurse who killed herself. I hope I seek counseling and am surrounded by wise and compassionate people who help me forgive myself and move on. I will also continue to push for an environment that is more open and accepting about errors.
