Quote from John Freeman on December 2, 2023, 12:20 am

Hello TPM community,

another one from today.

We have a sick child with respiratory problem who's hospitalised. To get better, he has to move. So I tell the parents for him to play in the play room in the corridor. It worked as his blood oxygen rose. However I made a mistake: he's not allowed to leave the room otherwise he's going to contaminate the other children. And he was COVID+ and RSV+ (another virus that children often get in winter). So it's almost a cardinal sin of hospital hygiene. I did not noticed it in the moment.

My colleague told me that the evening of the same day. He asks me if I'm ok with the decision of not letting him wander around and I tell him he's right and that he belongs to his room. That it was a mistake. Child goes back to room. End of story. Or so I thought.

The next day, the head nurse in the office with all the other nurses. She's coming on me and I know her look: she's pissed off. She's a kind and sweet woman but when she's pissed off she has this look. Priceless.

Anyway, so I know she wants to set something right and talks about my mistake.

I say: "Yeah, you're right I should have not let him out of the room".

I make the mistake of using a justification afterwards: "The kid had to move so I thought about the play room". (Now that I'm a leader I see what it does when people justify/excuse themselves to you: it makes them lose respect to your eyes. So mistake). It's a side note. It's not the main dynamics.

Then she says:

Her: you know we have to clean the whole room if he went there. And the nurses did not tell you anything?

Me: No

Her (with a surprised tone as in "this is stupid"): and the nurses did not tell you anything?!?

Me: No, but it's my fault.

Her (makes a face like something is wrong).

Me: No, but it's my fault.

So she throws a double frame: "my team is bad and my bad team should have told you how to do it right". So it means I'm worse than her bad team.

I'm the attending physician so it's definitely a power move. It's part of my responsibilities to check that children are isolated properly.

So yes, it's also part of the nurses' responsibilities (hospital hygiene practices are actually everyone working at the hospital responsibility). But still it's a power move.

So if I don't reclaim the responsibility of my mistake, I'm being babyied + pushed down.

I understand she was not happy with my mistake and the nurses' mistake but hey, it's done now, let's see how we can prevent to do it again (instead of looking for guilty people).