Ira: [00:00:11] This is Ira from The Secret Life of Vets. Today we're talking about what you should do if you're involved with a medical mistake. 

 

Ira: [00:00:18] If you've been practicing medicine for any period of time eventually unfortunately something like this is likely to happen and none of us are immune to this and I'm no exception to that. The principles I tried to keep in mind when I've been involved in these sorts of scenarios are a few things. First one is just to be honest you don't try to hide your mistakes nine times out of ten any sort of you know cover up or trying to hide or hide it hide your mistake ends up being even worse than whatever the original mistake was to begin with which in almost all instances was just an honest error that was made. And second thing is to take responsibility for what's gone wrong, that could mean a few things. There's always some excuse for why something happened why it might not be a hundred percent your fault. 

 

Ira: [00:01:01] But if you're the one that's in charge in that case you've got to take responsibility and feel like ultimately like the buck has got to stop with you even if there was some procedure that wasn't your fault or wasn't followed. I mean you're responsible for making sure that that things go right when it's your patients. Taking responsibility can mean for if there's complications related to that mistake that that potentially you and your clinic needs to financially assume the responsibility for doing everything that can be done to fix that mistake. Communicating openly and honestly with the pet owner about what's going on and doing everything in your power to fix that mistake, whatever the means. medically, financially or otherwise trying to do everything in your power to get things back to the way they would have been without that mistake having been made. And and it's hard. You know you have to be prepared for some pretty strong emotional reactions from people. Obviously nobody's happy when when mistakes happen and not everybody is going to be understanding that that mistakes happen. But you know at least in my experience if you're honest you showed genuine sort of concern and remorse for what's happened and take all the steps that you can to fix that error over a short period of time, people come back to your team and want to work with you to get things done so that things are right for their pet. And last but not least what the mistakes happen. 

 

Ira: [00:02:20] Always try to go back look at what's happened and why and see if you can create a change in how things are done in your clinic so that that mistake doesn't happen again. And also communicate that change to the person that the mistake happened to you'd be surprised at how often people just want to know that the mistake that happened in their case won't be repeated again because you've made a significant change to how you do things to prevent that from happening in the future. 

 

[00:02:43] That's my advice. This is Ira with The Secret Life of Vets. 

 

[00:03:19] This is Ira and you're watching THE SECRET LIFE OF VETS!