I introduced myself to the family sitting anxiously in the private room away from the chaotic symphony of beeping monitors in the main ER. When I opened the door, four pairs of bewildered eyes landed squarely and intensely on me. I wanted to look away so as not to betray my own emotions but instead stepped in and introduced myself again — one by one making eye contact. After a brief assessment of the landscape of relationships in the room and how much they knew, I was ready to deliver the update. Their husband, father, and family friend was dead. They had done all they could do to get him to us as quickly as possible. We had done all we could to save him. But he was dead. He would never again share a knowing glance with his wife or show up at his grandson’s baseball game.
This is where helplessness and senselessness live, intersecting on the spectrum of failure in what we do. But opposite of another extreme of failure in the ER is the one more often shared — mistakes or unintended consequences that culminate in a bad outcome. Fingers pointing out the things we work hard to prevent — a medication side effect, the wrong dose, an incorrect diagnosis, a lethal mistake. Or a human being reduced to facts quoted in a morbidity and mortality conference or a malpractice suit.
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