First Mistake, feel pretty crappy

[DD214_DOC]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

So in the middle of the night I made my first mistake. The patient is fine, just experienced some symptoms, but I feel pretty crappy now. I'm sure it's probably not the *first* mistake, but the first one that I know of. Somehow I made it all through intern year completely fine, but almost 3 months into PGY2 I mess up.

Anyway, I feel like an incompetent ***** now and keep having thoughts that I should just leave the program, even though there really was not a bad outcome. I'm assuming this is normal? (I actually do really well and think I'm pretty respected amongst faculty)

 

[whopper]

Just do your best. It's always enough, even if you messed up. Learn from it.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

So in the middle of the night I made my first mistake. The patient is fine, just experienced some symptoms, but I feel pretty crappy now. I'm sure it's probably not the *first* mistake, but the first one that I know of. Somehow I made it all through intern year completely fine, but almost 3 months into PGY2 I mess up.

Anyway, I feel like an incompetent ***** now and keep having thoughts that I should just leave the program, even though there really was not a bad outcome. I'm assuming this is normal? (I actually do really well and think I'm pretty respected amongst faculty)

You know, you're in training. We make mistakes. I'm sorry you're feeling so bad about it, though. Is there anyone you could talk to at your program to walk through it and your feelings around making this mistake?

On another thought, I think PGY2 year in some ways is harder than PGY1 because we expect ourselves to know everything already when we're not even halfway through our training. If you made a mistake as an intern, you could shrug it off because you were just an intern. As a PGY2, though, we should be super awesome and have everything down.

 

[billypilgrim37]

I made two fairly serious errors intern year, either of which could have resulted in some fairly bad things happen. Luckily, I caught the first one just in time, and the latter just made a patient sleepy for a few hours. I think I bawled in the bathroom for quite a while after both of them. And it probably took a few weeks before I felt normal again and wasn't hyper questioning everything I was doing.

Making a mistake makes you feel like you're incompetent, evil, and exactly the sort of doctor you never wanted to be. And my God, you just sacrificed some of the best years of your life on an altar taking out a small extra mortgage worth of educational loans while your family around you suffered just so you would have the privilege of becoming a doctor. And if you make a mistake, not only does your brain call into question the security of all that work, but you even worry if you DESERVE to be a doctor.

These are all cognitive distortions and none of them are true. Mistakes happen. Mistakes happen to REALLY GOOD doctors. You're grieving a fantasy of infallibility that we all develop. We give up so much to become doctors, our brain has to fantasize just to protect us against our insecurities. We are so vulnerable as trainees even in the most benign and supportive of programs. Early residency is an eternal cycle of constantly being expected to be better than you are, even if you are, for your developmental level, really good. It gets a lot better.

So, I guess I'm just saying not to be so hard on yourself. And it will get better. If your PD is worth anything, you should get some support, and they should also figure out if there might be something they need to help you with to make sure you're as good as you can be. If you don't get that support, it's not because you don't deserve it.

 

[mo1ly]

oh come on, don't give up now, you ain't robot, nobody expect you to be perfect all the time. I wouldn't call it a "mistake" how about "experience" ^_^ srsly don't make this become a buzzkill for you, you gonna make many mistakes that's how you "learn" thngs🙂

 

[Bartelby]

Anyway, I feel like an incompetent ***** now and keep having thoughts that I should just leave the program, even though there really was not a bad outcome. I'm assuming this is normal? (I actually do really well and think I'm pretty respected amongst faculty)

Talk to your attendings and PD about your performance. As others have said, we all make mistakes and by all indications you are a caring and comptent doctor. I bet they would confirm that for you.

 

[kugel]

FIRST mistake??!!
You're way behind. Get cracking!

Most of your peers (at least the industrious ones) have already made any number of mistakes and they are so far ahead of you that you might never catch up.
But, I suppose you should try.

 

[TexasPhysician]

Who doesn't mess up?

 

[michaelrack]

So in the middle of the night I made my first mistake. The patient is fine, just experienced some symptoms, but I feel pretty crappy now. )

hope I don't feel as bad when I make my first mistake

 

[jettavr6]

If you never a made mistake in residency, then something would be seriously wrong. It would be even worse if you left residency over a mistake.

Mistakes are the best parts of the educational process. Look at it as a blessing that nothing happened to the patient, and that you learned a valuable lesson in the process.

Take ownership of every mistake made, and learn from it.

 

[WhoisJohnGalt]

hope I don't feel as bad when I make my first mistake

 

[notdeadyet]

hope I don't feel as bad when I make my first mistake

Well played.