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If you can't handle the risk and punishment for being wrong DO NOT BECOME A NURSE (or Doctor)!! It's really that simple. Or better, make sure you have process

If you can't handle the risk and punishment for being wrong DO NOT BECOME A NURSE (or Doctor)!! It's really that simple. Or better, make sure you have processes and procedures to minimize fatality-causing errors - if others won't create them, YOU SHOULD for yourself as a professional! A VERY TRIVIAL process is having a checklist what includes: "Visually validate medication label to patient order" and even "Have one other attending nurse or doctor confirm validation". This is done by pilots as SOP! I have ZERO sympathy for her or for "colleagues who now worry"... NONE.

matthewmacleod 5y ago
This is an extremely damaging point of view that steamrolls through a fairly complex and nuanced issue with a skin-deep analysis. Like everyone else, I don't have the full picture of what happened in this particular case nor the extent to which this nurse's activities amount to criminal negligence. But I know for certain that we don't improve safety of life-critical systems generally by having a "if you make a mistake then fuck you" attitude.
ivraatiems 5y ago
Nurses and doctors are only human. Try to imagine: * You have been working 12 or 16 or longer hour shifts 6 days a week or more for the last two years due to COVID, and 24-hour or more shifts not infrequently. * You have many more patients than you should, because the hospital can't or won't hire more staff (partially due to COVID, partially this is just how it is). * You are regularly abused and belittled by patients, hospital admin, and maybe even your colleagues (medicine is often quite toxic). No process whatsoever can make up for the level of chronic exhaustion and incapacity these circumstances produce, and shouting "there should be process for this!" is making the problem worse. You are doing the same thing as the patients who expect to be treated like royalty - expecting humans to operate like machines. If it wasn't this nurse, it would have been another one. Few people can do better under these circumstances. That doesn't mean we don't hold people responsible, but without systemic change, this will keep happening. You have trivialized a very very large problem.
technobabbler 5y ago
Imagine being a pilot who also has to be a flight attendant for twenty passengers with different diets and allergies, five of whom are unreasonable to the extreme and two of whom are prone to violent outbursts, working 60 hour weeks on unpredictable shifts, being paid 1/2 to 2/3rd the salary, not having had a real vacation for three years, while your airline constantly tries to decrease your benefits, after your last four copilots left within weeks, while constantly speed walking around the plane and not having enough time for meals or breaks. Then every time you try to adjust the flight controls, four warnings pop up, company policy is to ignore the first two and sometimes the third. You're always supposed to pay attention to the fourth alert because it's super important, but it looks exactly the same as the other 12 alerts you saw this hour, and the passenger in 12B is having an asthma attack and the one in 20C is vomiting and upsetting everyone around her. And your copilot just quit again and your planned vacation for next month got canceled and you're asked to work two doubles again. You make a mistake, and a year later some lawyer asks you why you dismissed warning #4 nine months ago when SOP clearly says you need to pay attention. Don't you know how to do your job?!

matthewmacleod 5y ago

This is an extremely damaging point of view that steamrolls through a fairly complex and nuanced issue with a skin-deep analysis. Like everyone else, I don't have the full picture of what happened in this particular case nor the extent to which this nurse's activities amount to criminal negligence. But I know for certain that we don't improve safety of life-critical systems generally by having a "if you make a mistake then fuck you" attitude.

ivraatiems 5y ago

Nurses and doctors are only human. Try to imagine: * You have been working 12 or 16 or longer hour shifts 6 days a week or more for the last two years due to COVID, and 24-hour or more shifts not infrequently. * You have many more patients than you should, because the hospital can't or won't hire more staff (partially due to COVID, partially this is just how it is). * You are regularly abused and belittled by patients, hospital admin, and maybe even your colleagues (medicine is often quite toxic). No process whatsoever can make up for the level of chronic exhaustion and incapacity these circumstances produce, and shouting "there should be process for this!" is making the problem worse. You are doing the same thing as the patients who expect to be treated like royalty - expecting humans to operate like machines. If it wasn't this nurse, it would have been another one. Few people can do better under these circumstances. That doesn't mean we don't hold people responsible, but without systemic change, this will keep happening. You have trivialized a very very large problem.

technobabbler 5y ago

Imagine being a pilot who also has to be a flight attendant for twenty passengers with different diets and allergies, five of whom are unreasonable to the extreme and two of whom are prone to violent outbursts, working 60 hour weeks on unpredictable shifts, being paid 1/2 to 2/3rd the salary, not having had a real vacation for three years, while your airline constantly tries to decrease your benefits, after your last four copilots left within weeks, while constantly speed walking around the plane and not having enough time for meals or breaks. Then every time you try to adjust the flight controls, four warnings pop up, company policy is to ignore the first two and sometimes the third. You're always supposed to pay attention to the fourth alert because it's super important, but it looks exactly the same as the other 12 alerts you saw this hour, and the passenger in 12B is having an asthma attack and the one in 20C is vomiting and upsetting everyone around her. And your copilot just quit again and your planned vacation for next month got canceled and you're asked to work two doubles again. You make a mistake, and a year later some lawyer asks you why you dismissed warning #4 nine months ago when SOP clearly says you need to pay attention. Don't you know how to do your job?!