Medical errors

They happen... just like they do in other parts of life. It's horrible and unfortunate, but it's a fact. They're also unavoidable. We can (and should) do everything we can to minimize them, but no matter what, they're going to happen occasionally, or hopefully, rarely.

I haven't had to deal with this issue until relatively recently, and I consider myself very very fortunate. It's going to be purposefully vague, but I'll tell a story now because I think it has some valuable lessons to be learned from it.

I was taking care of a patient who was admitted for lung problems, and we were giving her all the appropriate treatment and doing the right studies for her for the first few days. Then the 3rd or 4th day, a nurse went in and gave the patient the wrong medications. Someone from the family was with the patient 24 hours a day, and they didn't notice at first, but then the nurse went in and threw a medication away into the trash without saying why. The family thought this was odd (as would anybody) and they looked at it, and it happened to have a different patient's name on it. In this case, the different medications probably did not cause any harm to the patient, however, giving the wrong medication was definitely an error. It was horrible and should never have happened but I feel that what happened afterward was worse.

The family had to call in a different nurse passing by to see what happened, who then called me. When I talked to the patient's official nurse, the one who gave the wrong medications, she denied certain aspects of it and lied (whether knowingly or unknowingly) about certain things - I only found out the truth later. Moreover, she never explained what happened or what she did to the family or any other doctors, and she never apologized.

No matter what happens, no matter how serious, you ALWAYS NEED TO TELL THE TRUTH. Although I feel particularly strongly about it in this case, I feel that this should be something people adhere to in general when dealing with patients.

Secondly, I believe in apologies, which we did (on behalf of the nurse) profusely to the patient and her family. There's actually some debate about this, although perhaps less so now than several years ago. At one point, I believe lawyers may have actually advised medical staff against apologizing to patients, whether or not some sort of mistake was made. The thought was that if you apologized you would be admitting guilt, which then would make a court case much more difficult. I don't necessarily agree, but I could see a situation in which medical staff apologized for something that was not anybody's fault, and the patient took it the wrong way. However, now people are saying that apologizing, while that may seem like admitting guilt, often deters patients and their families from suing the hospital or the staff. Personally, I think if you or somebody that works for you did something wrong, and it was without a doubt an error, you should apologize. You are guilty in a way, and if apologizing is a way of admitting that, then so be it.

In this case, the family even said that had the nurse come in and explained what had happened and apologized, they would still have been upset, and rightly so, but they would not have been so angry as they were when we started talking to them. Unfortunately, at least at the beginning, the family was threatening to sue... however as time went on and everyone calmed down a bit, they didn't seem as litigation-minded. Actually, since no harm came to the patient from the error, they likely would not have won a court case anyways. Hopefully patients (and their families) realize that health care workers are, for the most part, all trying to do their best, and unfortunately, sometimes mistakes are made and all we can do is try to prevent them and correct them as best as possible.