School Nurse Second Victim
Resources — A Path Through
Have you experienced a medication error or adverse event trauma? If so, there is help. Below are some suggestions for possible healing. Not every tool will work for every nurse, but you are worth giving these ideas a try.
- Learn more about the second victim’s stages of healing at: https://www.muhealth.org/about-us/quality-care-patient-safety/office-of-clinical-effectiveness/foryou
- EAP, Employee Assistance Program. Many workplaces have such a program that provides several free counseling sessions. You may need to call them to get names of counselors, and then call the counselor to make an appointment.
- Counseling. With an EAP or other counselor, it may take several sessions to see if it is a right fit. And sometimes you need to try another counselor, or two or three, to find someone that can work well with you. If you do not have counseling covered under your insurance, there are often counselor available through free clinics. Student counselors through a graduate school may also be excellent and low-cost.
- Your professional school nursing organization may have a support group. Even if there is no formal support group, attending meetings is a way to find supportive individuals.
- Religious/spiritual groups provide support. The book, Choosing Wisdom (Plews-Ogan, Owens, & May, 2012), explains how physicians who made mistakes found wholeness, and one important thread is spirituality. If you do not have a faith community, you might want to check out the Belief-O-Matic Quiz at Beliefnet.com to find one that may feel comfortable for you.
- For more information or help starting a peer support group for school nurse victims check out a hospital’s program at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051469/
Trieber and Jones say: One of the most common themes we found was the level of devastating emotion associated with making a medication error. It is understandable that one would feel sick when making a serious error. However, we found that nurses’ minor errors similarly resulted in raw, painful emotions. We identified strong emotional reactions in accounts of errors made recently as well those made years—sometimes decades—before. Nurses described a visceral response at the moment of realization that a medication error had been made. These responses were what they recalled in conjunction with the act, no matter how minor the error and no matter how long ago. (2010, p1334)
Plews-Ogan, M., Owens, J. & May, N. (2012). Choosing Wisdom: Strategies and inspiration for growing through life-changing difficulties. West Conshohocken: Templeton.
Trieber, L. & Jones, J. (2010) Devastatingly human: An analysis of registered nurses’ medication error accounts. Qualitative Health Research 20(10) 1327-1342. doi: 10.1177/1049732310372228
Wu, A. W. (2000). Medical error: The second victim. The doctor who makes the mistake needs help too. British Medical Journal, 320, 726–727.