Indexing Title: BCDEVEZA’s Medical Anecdotal Report [ 06 – 6 ]
MAR Title: Gaining Back My Confidence
Date of Medical Observation: July 2006
Narration
Several weeks ago, during one of the weekly audits, I presented a mortality. It was a case of a 47-year-old male who underwent IJ catheter insertion. The cause of death was attributed to Respiratory Failure secondary to Tension Pneumothorax. That was my first mortality in such a procedure and thinking of what happened to the patient, I would say that it was something iatrogenic. Because of that, everything in me just went down. Somehow, I lost confidence in myself. All of a sudden, I became afraid of doing the procedure, thinking that it might happen again. Everytime we had our endorsements, I was always on the look out if there was any for IJ catheter insertion because for sure, I’ll be the one doing it. I know that even though I want to avoid it, there will come a time that I’ll be doing the procedure again.And true enough, I did it.
During one of my duties, a patient was endorsed for IJ catheter insertion. He was a 53-year-old male diagnosed with CKD stage V secondary to DM Nephropathy. I said to myself that this was the moment I was waiting for. My senior told me to check on the materials. As I was on my way to his room, I was hoping that it was not complete so I can have a reason not to do it. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, it was complete. I guess I was really destined to do it. And so, I ordered that the patient be brought to the operating room where I will do the procedure. Before I started, all my fears came. I was still thinking of that last patient. I know I have to conquer that fear because if not, I might not do the procedure properly.As I was preparing, I uttered a prayer. A prayer that asked for guidance and strength. When I started the procedure, my fears slowly got out of me. Everything went well and I successfully inserted the IJ catheter.My patient came out of the operating room……alive.
Insights (Physical, Psychosocial, Ethical) (Discovery, Stimulus, Reinforcements):
As a Surgeon, I believe that confidence is one important thing that we should possess. It is something that drives us whenever we do our operations. It helps us in our decision-making whenever we are confronted with difficult situations. Once lost, we may not be able to do things properly and somehow, it will have a major effect in our everyday life.
I think what I experienced was something that’s common to some of us. Sometime in our life, we lost that confidence that we used to have and in the process, some things were also lost.
Gaining back my confidence is something important to me. I must say that it plays a great part in the things I do as a Surgeon. And of course, with the help of prayer,gaining it back was not that dificult.