‘It’s normal that you feel guilty’: What to know about coping with errors

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By Michael Marshall

A growing body of research suggests there are effective ways to limit lingering harm – for families and doctors – in the aftermath of a medical mistake.

As doctors know all too well, medical errors can have tragic consequences. Earlier this year, a 19-year-old named Isaac Arrowsmith died as a result of complications from a blood clot, which was misdiagnosed as a chest infection. Arrowsmith had a rare disorder that put him at increased risk of clotting, but emergency department doctors were falsely reassured by seemingly normal blood tests and failed to admit him.

The idea of a ‘second victim’ was first given a name in a BMJ paper in 2000, when Dr Albert Wu wrote that ‘the doctor who makes the mistake needs help too’

While there’s a lot that medical institutions can do to minimise the risk of such errors, medicine is complex and difficult, and some mistakes are inevitable. They can lead to immense harm: both for patients and their loved ones, and for the healthcare workers involved, who may become “second victims” of the incident.