{"id":314391,"date":"2025-10-18T21:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314391\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T21:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T21:37:10","slug":"doctors-need-support-coping-with-anxiety-after-making-a-mistake-at-work-conference-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/314391\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctors need support coping with anxiety after making a mistake at work, conference told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doctors whose mistakes have a negative impact on patients need more support to deal with issues around anxiety and depression, a medical conference has been told.<\/p>\n

Dr Sorcha O\u2019Meara told members of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association<\/a> (IHCA) in Kilkenny<\/a> the impact on practitioners went beyond \u201cfeeling guilt and anxiety. People describe suicidal thoughts and there have been cases of death by suicide\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said when \u201cthings don\u2019t go according to plan and our patients suffer, maybe as a result of things we have done, there is an intense feeling of shame\u201d.<\/p>\n

Prof Kevin Turner from Bournemouth University referenced a survey of surgeons involved in \u201cadverse events\u201d. This suggested half suffered with anxiety afterwards, 42 per cent struggled to sleep properly and 10 per cent said they drank more alcohol.<\/p>\n

Almost 90 per cent said peer support for surgeons was needed, but only a quarter believed the peer support available after an adverse event was adequate. <\/p>\n

Prof Rhona Mahony, an obstetrician based at the National Maternity Hospital<\/a> (NMH), said many doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals struggle to deal with the stress of litigation.<\/p>\n

Citing her experience from NMH, she said midwives often \u201ceither leave practice totally or choose to practise elsewhere\u201d after being involved in cases. This \u201cdoesn\u2019t make patients safer; in fact it enhances risk\u201c, she said.<\/p>\n

Research indicated obstetricians faced a 15 per cent risk of post-traumatic stress disorder after being the subject of litigation. For many, returning to work was a more immediate issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a dead baby and you feel you\u2019re responsible for that, that is really difficult,\u201d Prof Mahony said. \u201cBut you\u2019ve got to go back into work the next day and deal with really difficult cases again.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the adversarial nature of the litigation process contributed to the problems in many instances. Prof Mahony added that a long-awaited system of \u201cpre-action protocols\u201d would represent a significant measure in attempts to improve the legal landscape.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe more-than \u20ac5 billion liability has grown from \u20ac900m in 2010, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association conference heard. Photograph: Getty <\/p>\n

Pre-action protocols refers to a set of rules requiring early engagement between claimants and doctors. It is envisaged this will cut the number of cases reaching the High Court or only being settled after the protracted involvement of lawyers. <\/p>\n

In addition to benefiting all parties, such a move could help curb the growth in the State\u2019s liability for medical negligence claims. The liability figure is currently estimated to stand at \u20ac5.35 billion and is increasing by 13 per cent annually. Fifteen years ago, the conference heard, it stood at \u20ac900 million.<\/p>\n

Philip Fagan, senior clinical claims manager at the State Claims Agency<\/a>, told the meeting there are currently 10,968 medical negligence cases against the State pending, with new ones lodged every week. He said he expects the pre-action protocols to be introduced next year.<\/p>\n

Patient advocate Margaret Murphy, whose 21-year-old son Kevin died in 1999 due to a medical error, told the conference disclosure should not be about blame, but integrity, learning and prevention.<\/p>\n

She said she had been deeply grateful for the \u201cnaked honesty\u201d of a nurse who told her in the wake of her son\u2019s death that it should not have happened. However, she added \u201cin a very short time all of that was replaced with a process of damage limitation\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said \u201camazing lengths\u201d had been taken to prevent her learning the details of what happened to her son.<\/p>\n

Ms Murphy said she is routinely approached at events by medical professionals who tell her they can still envisage a repeat of what happened to her son happening where they work.<\/p>\n

She recalled a fleeting encounter with one doctor who became emotional as he told her he hadn\u2019t expected her son to die. \u201cI felt that they had abandoned me but they had also abandoned him. I wanted to give him a hug.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doctors whose mistakes have a negative impact on patients need more support to deal with issues around anxiety…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":314392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2513,158244,4740,158245,44984,2451,9297,144617,9298,144618,210,1005,24580,66736,158246,517,81798,40335,35413,2824,83779,77037,8743,9301,158247,125732,55579,67,132,44999,9302,68,158248,158249],"class_list":{"0":"post-314391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-architecture","9":"tag-at-the-edge-of","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bridge-man-made-structure","12":"tag-building-exterior","13":"tag-city","14":"tag-cityscape","15":"tag-downtown-district","16":"tag-dusk","17":"tag-famous-place","18":"tag-health","19":"tag-horizontal","20":"tag-hotel","21":"tag-illuminated","22":"tag-melbourne-australia","23":"tag-mental-health","24":"tag-modern","25":"tag-no-people","26":"tag-office-building","27":"tag-outdoors","28":"tag-panoramic","29":"tag-reflection","30":"tag-river","31":"tag-skyscraper","32":"tag-southbank-melbourne","33":"tag-street-light","34":"tag-travel-destinations","35":"tag-united-states","36":"tag-unitedstates","37":"tag-urban-scene","38":"tag-urban-skyline","39":"tag-us","40":"tag-victoria-australia","41":"tag-yarra-river"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}