It won’t happen to me…
Right… Isn’t that what everyone says? Isn’t that what your patient’s say -or at least – that is what you know they are thinking.
Someone comes in for a checkup and they’re 67 lbs. overweight and they don’t exercise and they smoke. You tell them that they need to make some immediate lifestyle changes or there will be consequences to their health and you get that tell-tale nod and you know they are thinking it: It won’t happen to me. Four months later they’re in the ER with a blood clot.
A 23 year old man is admitted after a horrible motorcycle accident with a broken femur and a ruptured spleen and you find out he was street racing with his friends. I’m pretty sure at some point he told someone: It won’t happen to me.
Every person who’s ever sat in your waiting room-with their fingers pressed against their temples, after hearing an upsetting diagnosis has thought it: I thought it wouldn’t happen to me.
Yet IT does happen- doesn’t it? In your profession, you certainly hear it every day. We hear it all of the time, from every Nurse we represent. Nurses don’t maliciously operate outside their scope of practice. They don’t mis-chart on purpose. They certainly don’t mistreat a patient with intent, but these things do happen, or they can be perceived to have taken place and THAT is all it takes- A complaint is filed with the BRN and it is the BRN’s RESPONSIBILITY TO INVESTIGATE THAT COMPLAINT.
Of COURSE you don’t think it will happen to you! You’re an experienced nurse. You know what you’re doing. You’re well liked and none of your co-workers would ever say anything bad about you. You’ve never had a complaint made by a patient or patient’s family member. BUT WHAT IF IT DID HAPPEN? Would you be prepared?
The following post is an email string from a very distraught wife of a nurse, who found RN Guardian too late. I’m sure you’re thinking it right now…it won’t happen to me.
