This is the final chapter from my forthcoming book on Patient Safety - How to Protect Yourself from Medical Errors. Let’s go back to where we started - the night I nearly killed my patient. I was never given an opportunity to discuss this case in a non-critical forum – and the other residents were not given a chance to learn from my mistakes either. The only silver lining was that I read and learned everything I could about the management of severe PIH, and became so well-versed on this topic, that the other residents would ask me for help when they had a similar patient.
All doctors have had a similar experience during their training, but this is the elephant in the room which no one was willing to discuss at that time. In fact, Dr Albert Wu has described doctors and nurses who harm their patients as a result of their mistakes as being “ the second victim”. The truth is that…
