to feel so down after making a mistake at work

[lightacandle]

Can't divulge too much but.. . I work in healthcare and today I got a letter from a patient complaining about the care I gave them. I did make a mistake (which I didn't know about until now) and will be following up with a letter of apology after checking with manager etc - diagnosis was delayed although fortunately it has not affected the outcome.

I am ruminating over it, feel really down and like giving up my career. I've never received a letter of complaint before (10 years in the job) but I tend to get very upset over any errors I make. I find it very hard to confide in colleagues as I just don't want to talk about it.
DH doesn't really understand. I'm the only breadwinner so he just sees it as my job to keep going.

Just needed somewhere anonymous to get this off my chest.

I cocked something up the other day. Not life threatening but embarrassing. You know what? It's shaken my confidence a bit but more than anything it's a timely reminder for me to pay attention/concentrate more.

I can imaging it is a blow to your confidence. But try put it behind you. It is good that you care, but don't let it pull you down. Everybody makes mistakes, and most of us feel bad when they come to light. I know I did...

Maybe say to yourself when you start thinking about it again 'Move on, no need to go back over that again'?
Good Luck!

Sorry to hear that OP. I am a lawyer of 15 years and I have also been visited by the fuck-up fairy a few times. Once, my firm was sued by a client over a genuine drafting mistake I made at 3 years post-qual It made me suicidal at the time, but I kept bumbling along and realised I was not alone. Now I am old and crumbly, I realise I am a better lawyer for it, and do my best to support junior staff with their howlers. It happens to us all.

DH is a doc and has a much more stoic attitude to complaints and errors than me ie "shit happens" I wish I could be more like that and I do wonder if women tend to take this type of thing more personally.

Do. Not. Quit.

OP, I'm a healthcare professional too and made a big, dumb error on a night shift last night. I cried outside the room afterwards, fgs. Unfortunately we're only human and these things will happen to almost everyone in their career. It's made me feel better today to read this and realize we all struggle sometimes.

There's a great book called 'Real Behaviour Change in Primary Care' which has a lot of tools for managing these difficult feelings and experiences and reducing their impact and influence in the negative sense while supporting you to commit to your values as a HCP in care from here on out. The danger is you become dominated by the 'I'm a crap HCP' story and let it suck the good out of what you do. I have both complained and been complained about (three in one three month period as I kept forgetting to rebook people as I had come back to work too early after an illness).

It's a hard process on both sides. As a HCP, we are not great always at accepting when we cause pain, and sometimes we do.. If you can, try to accept the difficult thoughts and feelings about the pain of this client and look at them for what they are, accepting this patient was hurt and that is true, without hardening your heart against them OR you. It arose, there was pain, it's part of this person's process to speak out about it, that's important for them.

And any professional worth ANYTHING will make mistakes, sometimes even major ones. If you didn't you couldn't be human, authentic or caring, or indeed make any improvements or learn anything.

Bue I'm sorry to hear that. Please don't be hard on yourself, mistakes happen xx

Doc here too. My empathies. Happens to us all. I worked 90 hours last week. Not an excuse, but the hours some of us do are truly unsafe.

Hugs to you, I absolutely hate making mistakes and know how you feel.

I find it helps to think - how will I feel about this in a year?

And also it's a cliche but improvement comes from mistakes. I've just interviewed for a senior role where I work and they were much more interested in how I deal with problems and mistakes than my successes, because that's where all the stuff like learning and resilience comes in.

My line manager is fond of quoting "don't let the best be the enemy of the good" which I think is relevant here. Quitting would be allowing one sole (obviously serious) mistake triumph over all the good you could do in the next 10 years having learned from the mistake. I would 100times rather be treated by someone who had made a mistake, learned from it and was working conscientiously knowing she was fallible than someone who had never (yet) made a mistake and was growing complacent.

I just wanted to come back and thank everyone so much for responding with such kind comments. They really helped me - much more than I imagined. I have drafted my apology letter and sent it for approval. As someone said, it is still quite raw and I think I will feel better when the letter is sent. Had some unexpectedly lovely comments at work today which helped. Thank you for sharing your stories . I think as vinegarandbrownpaper said it's shaken my identity of my work self. And I could really empathise with you youngwoman - I started feeling a bit suicidal myself last night but much better today.
to all!

Nobody's perfect and everyone makes mistakes. What makes the difference is how we react. If you can use this to reflect and deep, it can make you a better practitioner. Your response suggests to me that you will do exactly that.

lightacandle glad you're feeling a bit better. We all make mistakes sometimes. Do you have access to good clinical supervision at work? It's really useful to have a safe and supportive space to talk these sort of things through and look at what happened, what we'd do differently and what actually might have been unavoidable. If you're not getting that it might be worth discussing with your manager.

I walked into the office yesterday and honestly nearly cried - I was getting yelled at by clients for not doing something and told off by my manager for doing it! Some days in health care you do your an absolute best and it's still not good enough. You sound like you really care about your patients and do your best to provide the best care you can, no one can expect more from you then that.

I realise now a mistake was made when I had my first DS. I remember the midwife apologising and I could not understand why. There was a shift swap during my labour and she thought I had an empty bladder but I could not wee at all. So I was pushing on a full bladder for hours and eventually they put in a catheter and he burst out and I had a third degree tear. Would I change a thing? NO WAY. Every single person involved in my care was AMAZING! Including the lovely brave woman who profusely apologised rather than saying nothing. I never would have known otherwise. Sounds like your concern at having made a mistake puts you in the same category as the brilliant people I met in both my labours. They get no thanks and I don't think they realise there are women like me who will never forget them. Whatever it is you do please carry on. WE NEED YOU.

Just some practical advice. If you work in the NHS they have a counselling service and it might help to talk this through.

We have all made mistakes as HCP's , anyone who says they haven't is probably telling a massive fib. How the mistake is dealt with is key , you recognise the mistake , do everything you can to rectify it and learn from it and then you have to move on . You have to remember that 99.9% of the time you are doing a fantastic job lightacandle .

The fact that you care about the situation proves that you should still be doing the job , when you stop caring , that is the time to leave .