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Medical Error 'Second Victims' Get Some Help, Finally
Johns Hopkins research center director Albert Wu, MD, was a San Diego house officer when a fellow resident "failed to appreciate the significance of a patient's test result. An urgent problem became an emergency in the middle of the night" and the patient had to be rushed into surgery.
The staff turned on the resident, who "bore the brunt of finger pointing and criticism" for his lapse in medical judgment, Wu recalls.
"It became a bit of a mob, [with] bullying, with gossip, and [with] criticizing and castigating," Wu says. The way the resident was treated, "was wrong, because he shouldn't have been the only one seen as responsible for every aspect of this patient's care. More importantly, it wasn't a good way to handle the problem."
In fact, it was quite destructive.
That was in 1987, but the incident nagged at Wu as he realized that healthcare organizations are missing an opportunity to help caregivers grapple with the emotional distress of errors and bad outcomes they see so often.
"Although patients are the first and obvious victims of medical mistakes, doctors are wounded by the same errors; they are the second victims," he wrote in a British Medical Journal article in 2000.
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Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
R.M. (1/18/2013 at 11:03 AM)
I know what it's like to be the family member of someone who's had a medical mistake made on them, and a healthcare worker who's life was devastated after being accused of a medical mistake. When you're the "first victim," you have options. There are support groups, sympathy, apologies, and many people seek legal action. In the case of the healthcare worker, you are singled out, silenced, and made to feel like you can't do the job you used to love. In many cases you lose your job and ability to support yourself and family, too. Healthcare facilities need to look at adverse events as ways to improve patient care facility-wide. If one person made an error in good faith, certainly it could happen again to someone else. Punishing the employee just spreads an attitude of fear to report errors. Thank you for this important, often overlooked aspect of healthcare.
Daniel Long (1/18/2013 at 9:41 AM)
Absolutely speechless!!! I could not have been more insulted. Second victim? Hospitals are irresponsible if they don't spend MORE money for patting the doctors on the head saying "Its OK, it is the patients fault, you are still godlike, besides it will cost us money to replace you if you don't push this out of your mind and keep the money coming in" Heck with the family, we already falsified the records, they will never know, and besides, we already have the Medical Boards blessing to cover this little incident up. Here, our next customer ($$$,$$$.$$) is waiting for you. ;-) You can quote me on that. Danny Long
Pat Spray (1/18/2013 at 9:40 AM)
As a "first victim" of a medical "oopsie" that landed me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life... what still galls me TO THIS DAY is that the prat who did it NEVER had the decency to say "sorry". I understand there are 1 million and 1 different decisions that could've been made and that hindsight is 20/20 (and means you only have a good view of your own butt). But if the medical professionals are ALL THAT TORE UP about us "poor first victims" - maybe the they should aim for closure for both of us! Express your regrets - let us see them in your eyes. Share your anguish so we can share ours and maybe it won't take so long (if ever) for us each to accept and move on.