From staff nurse to nurse consultant: Survival Guide part 6: Surviving critical incidents

Take a few moments to think back over your nursing career, starting from your student days to the present, and identify some of the key ‘critical incidents’ that have happened to you. Use a broad definition of critical incidents to include anything that had a significant impact on you at the time; this could be the sudden and unexpected death of a patient, threats of aggression from patients or relatives, medication mismanagement, patient suicide, a personality clash with a colleague, having to tell a student that they have failed their placement, or a more routine clinical emergency. Once you have recalled two or three of these incidents, take a few more moments to reflect on how they affected you at the time and then how they have impacted on you and your development subsequently.

My first clinical placement as an 18-year-old student nurse was a surgical ward and I can still remember my physical and psychological reactions to a patient with advanced gangrene of his leg, who was nursed in a side room. Given the severity of his condition only more senior and experienced staff entered the side room and cared for him. But as part of my ‘training’ I accompanied the staff nurse one morning as she cared for the patient. The sight and smell of the decaying tissue could not be disguised, neither could the psychological despair of the patient. I can't remember how I responded while in the side room, but I know that my social and professional skills were totally inadequate. Another ‘incident’ 30 years later was while working as a senior nursing lecturer in a university. I took a 4-week sabbatical and spent it working in a hospice. I remember getting to know ‘George’ over a few days and then sitting with him one evening as he gently and peacefully died.