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Medical Error 'Second Victims' Get Some Help, Finally
As the new patient safety officer, she says, "One of my jobs was to work with physicians after an anticipated event, talk about what transpired, and see if there were lessons we could learn about keeping future patients safe."
She heard caregivers give "incredible details (of the incident), and at the end of the conversation I would ask, 'Well that had to be really tough. How are you doing?'
"What I wasn't prepared for was the responses. Many would just break down in tears. 'I'm not sure I even want to be a doctor anymore,' said one. 'I should go be a WalMart greeter, I can't mess that up.'
Those kinds of demeaning phrases, and you could tell they just had real visceral pain from their experience. Their whole psyche was destroyed."
Very frequently these second victims were told by hospital lawyers not to discuss what happened except to investigators. "They'd go home, pick at their food, have restless nights and many suffered from marital stress because their spouses thought their marriages were in trouble," Scott says.
Traditional employee assistance programs (EAP) are staffed by professionals who don't work in a hospital. The emotionally devastated caregiver, she found, "really wants to talk with someone who actually knows what it's like."
With help from the EAP, Scott's project has trained 99 volunteers who have helped 639 members of the staff cope with second victims. She calls it a "rapid response team for clinicians," or "emotional first aid."
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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.