Hello everybody!
This site is AWESOME! I just found it today after a couple months of a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend, who is a first year (PGY-1?) resident in general surgery at the University of Minnesota. I'm in New York, in a graduate journalism program at NYU.
Anyways, I found this site while searching on the internet for ways to help residents dealing with patient deaths. My guy just recently had somebody die and it was the first time he experienced a death that he felt could have been prevented. I won't go into details, but he treated a patient who was having an invasive but routine procedure was doing fine, then left after being on call and had a day off, and when he got back to work after his day off, the patient was near death. He says that if he had done phone rounds on his day off, he could have had a better handle on the situation and taken measures so the patient would have stayed healthy. (Sorry I can't be more specific).
So he was real bummed and when I talked to him I felt like I didn't have any idea what to say. I was sympthetic, of course, and I really felt badly for him. But as far as responding his feelings of regret and sadness and anger over a patient's death--I didn't have the words. I felt totally ineffective. If I'd been there in person, I would have just hugged him tight, but over the phone I needed words. What kinds of things do you say to someone who is depressed about a death he feels that he could have prevented?
Thanks for listening if you made it this far! Any advice would be appreciated. Oh, and please visit my blog (see below). :chat:
This site is AWESOME! I just found it today after a couple months of a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend, who is a first year (PGY-1?) resident in general surgery at the University of Minnesota. I'm in New York, in a graduate journalism program at NYU.
Anyways, I found this site while searching on the internet for ways to help residents dealing with patient deaths. My guy just recently had somebody die and it was the first time he experienced a death that he felt could have been prevented. I won't go into details, but he treated a patient who was having an invasive but routine procedure was doing fine, then left after being on call and had a day off, and when he got back to work after his day off, the patient was near death. He says that if he had done phone rounds on his day off, he could have had a better handle on the situation and taken measures so the patient would have stayed healthy. (Sorry I can't be more specific).
So he was real bummed and when I talked to him I felt like I didn't have any idea what to say. I was sympthetic, of course, and I really felt badly for him. But as far as responding his feelings of regret and sadness and anger over a patient's death--I didn't have the words. I felt totally ineffective. If I'd been there in person, I would have just hugged him tight, but over the phone I needed words. What kinds of things do you say to someone who is depressed about a death he feels that he could have prevented?
Thanks for listening if you made it this far! Any advice would be appreciated. Oh, and please visit my blog (see below). :chat:
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