Medication of Errors
Abstract
Unfavorable events and upsetting outcomes send shockwaves through the whole health care team. Often, healers can suffer from feelings of guilt, blame, inadequacy, or anger, as families grieve over the loss of a loved one. When healthcare professionals struggle with the repercussions of a disastrous event, they are called second victims. Second victims, pose a danger to themselves as well as to future patients.
Introduction
Medical team members work in challenging situations and meet unforeseen patient outcomes. Avoiding problems is a top priority for all healthcare professionals; however, medical errors are hard to avoid. These unfavorable events may give rise to severe harm or even passing on to the patient. Nurses Julie Thao and Kimberly Hiatt are known to be casualties of second victim syndrome. This happened when they each accidentally made mistakes that led to the passing on of their patients. Their errors led to demises that brought a strong message or lesson from which other healthcare professionals and I can learn.
Second Victim Syndrome
Being a human, it is inherent in making mistakes and forgiving such mistakes is a pre-eminent act. Members of the medical team should expect mistakes to happen, and suspension or sacking should not be an immediate response to their mistakes. Instead, they should give another chance to prevent them from becoming second victims and thus experiencing emotional trauma and other side effects that could even lead to suicide.
Nurses and doctors should have the freedom to make mistakes. For example, Kimberly Hiatt chose not to be secretive and, in fact, admitted her mistake and promised to be more careful going onwards. Months following Hiatt’s case, a survey of the Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA) pointed out that a third would stall in reporting an error or patient safety concern in the view of the fact that they were afraid of the penalty awaiting them (Scott & Henneman, 2017).
Beneficence and Benevolence
The principle of beneficence and virtue of benevolence states that healthcare professionals must do all they can to benefit the patient in every circumstance. In the two nurses’ cases, this principle is applied since they balanced the benefits of treatment against the risks and costs involved. For instance, in Thao’s case, 16-year-old Gant died, but her son Gregory was delivered successfully.
Colleagues Virtues
In addition to benevolence, the nurses` colleagues exhibited other virtues such as courage or bravery, friendliness, and generosity. In the act of bravery, the nurses do a rally. Sare even found outside the courthouse claiming that the charges were drastic. Nurses who were generous and supporting enough set up a defense fund for Julie Thao for those wishing to contribute to her legal defense.
Personal Virtues
The so-called “second victim syndrome” has its adverse effects. In that manner, second victims need virtues such as forgiveness, patience, and optimism to navigate the grieving process. These victims have to face feelings of guilt, blame, insufficiency, and anger towards themselves when certainly they did not intend to put the patient in harm’s way. They need to forgive themselves and have patience since the grieving process takes time and cling on to the hope of being more careful in the future.
References
Scott, S. S., & Henneman, E. (2017). Underreporting of medical errors. MedSurg Nursing, 26(3), 211-214.