Anonymous
- (Cont’d) said that it was the team’s fault, not just mine, and i’d better learn from it. But i know those were just words of encouragement. It was my fault. The worst part is, it wasn’t some mysterious diseases that she died from, it was something that i have treated before. I wasn’t able to see past her seem-to-be good state. I feel guilty. I cried many times. Has any of the medblrs gone through this? I don’t know who to turn to.i don’t think i’ll be able to continue knowing that i’m a murderer.
Ok let’s get this real clear first: you are not a murderer. If you were trying to help the patient but just didn’t get the diagnosis or treatment in time, you didn’t kill them. A murderer ends someone’s life on purpose. You didn’t do that. Now if you knew the patient had a life threatening problem and intentionally did nothing about it, that’s malpractice and pretty crappy ethics. Also, you are not solely responsible here. You had seniors and I assume attending doctors who also hold some responsibility toward the patient and are there to catch what you miss or mess up. It sounds to me like nobody is at fault here.
Second, yes, we all see tragic deaths and bad outcomes from our lack of knowledge or resources or speed or what have you. You do what you can with what you have, but it doesn’t always work out. I’ve watched a child choke to death on their own swollen tongue because we didn’t have a way to secure their airway. I had a patient have a ruptured cerebral aneurysm that I knew was coming but we couldn’t get anything done about it quickly enough. I’ve seen plenty of patients die or suffer from lack of appropriate medications and from delay in treatment. But I always did what I could. There should be no guilt in bad outcomes when you did what you could do.
I have also had a few instances where I missed a pretty big diagnosis. In two cases the patient died. In one the patient lost his sight and in another no harm was done but I still felt absolutely terrible that I hadn’t gone ahead and gotten the test that the little voice in the back of my head was telling me to get. I definitely kicked myself over those outcomes. But you can’t dwell on them. You learn from them and make sure you don’t miss that same thing twice. If you spend your energy wallowing over your mistake, you won’t have the proper focus on your current patients and will be prone to missing more stuff.
