The pressure of my profession

There have been a lot of things rolling around in my brain lately. I want to discuss one of those things.

In April, a nurse committed suicide because of a medication error she had made the previous September. The medication error may have played a role in the death of the infant 5 days later. From what I have read, experts cannot say either way if the medication error caused the baby's death or not, as the baby was in a fragile state prior to the error.

What hurts the most are people's reactions to the tragedy. A few people commented on how there was no justice served for the family of the child since the nurse committed suicide. The one comment in particular that shook me was:

"This story is a real shame - that the nurse would take her own life, rather than face justice, only to leave the hospital staff to clean up her mess.

As a parent, especially of an infant or toddler, I would be only satisfied with questions of why. Why my child did you (hospital employee) chose to carry out ill advised medical care? Now that the nurse decided to end her own life, as a parent (hypothetically speaking), I am left without what I'd believe to be true justice. "

You can see one of the articles, and comments/responses here.

It only takes a few harsh/rude/inappropriate comments, in an ocean of supportive/friendly/agreeable comments to rock the boat. But I was not the only one shaken by this person's opinion. It makes me feel that the work I do isn't appreciated. The nurse was not reckless, she had no history of being a "crappy" nurse. She had been working for 24 years and had never made a mistake like this before. But there are people out there that are only satisfied with a public stoning. If I were to make a mistake, there would be people out there making comments similar to this. It is difficult to get "true justice" in a situation such as this. There is no winner, only losers. It terrifies me to my very core that I might find myself here: making an error that causes someone else harm. And to have no one there to pick me up after I fall.

I like to think that my family would support me, and carry me through that dark place of despair, that I would be strong enough to bounce back from such a horrible fall, but I don't know for sure. Depression, regret and guilt are difficult things to fight through, especially when the negative, harsh, unsupportive comments are louder and clearer than the supportive ones. I have to believe that I would persevere. I have to believe that I would be forgiven if I made such an error. Because the opposite is too depressing to think about.