I feel so bad about this?

[Potathoe]

I feel so bad!

I work in a hospital as a CNA, I'm 6 months in. We had a patient tonight who was blind.

It. Was. A. Disaster.

I am not used to directing blind people, I stood in front of him and had grab both of my hands. He would start to get confident and start to do things on his own. Took him into the bathroom without any issues, and got him up and went to get his weight. He started to go towards the left and bonked his head on the wall, its kind of like a metal threshold. It wasn't hard, it was a bonk. Then I went to get his weight, and he stepped on the scale and grazed his toes against the metal and he swore to himself.

I feel so bad, I told the nurse and I was almost in tears. :( I feel so bad, I'm 25 and been doing this for almost 5 years in nursing homes. I feel so awful.. 😪

I'm such a dunce. I feel so stupid.. why can't I do anything right?

[NamerOfStars]

I was raised Catholic in a Jewish town; I know guilt like nobody else does. And I'm here to tell you that guilt is the least productive feeling you'll ever know. You screwed up? That's unfortunate- now are you just going to stew in misery, or are you going to DO something about it?

See, you CAN do things right- and you can start by making this right. I'm guessing this wasn't the first blind person the hospital's had to deal with, but even if he was, he probably won't be the last. So there's clearly a deficit in the training or instruction you received. That doesn't change that you could've done better, but it means that the fault wasn't entirely yours- and it gives you a place to start the improvement. Now, I'm guessing you already apologized to the man in question, and at this point, there's nothing more you can do for him directly, but you CAN help improve things so if he has to come back, these problems won't happen again.

Think of some changes that could be made to make these appointments easier for blind people. You won't come up with everything, and some of your ideas might not work for various reasons; that's okay. When you have a few ideas, talk to your supervisor and express your concerns; patients coming to the hospital aren't just patients, they're also customers, and so it's not just in the hospital's humanitarian interest to make them as comfortable as possible, but their financial interest as well. Make your suggestions, too- you'll be received more positively if you come to them with solutions, instead of just problems, even if your solutions aren't the best. Asking for ideas and even just raising the issue with coworkers can also help, as they may have tricks or methods they use that aren't official, but still improve things. You may also want to contact whatever school or organization did your training, and bring this up; an improvement in their programs could help keep this from happening to anyone else.

Ultimately, you screwed up. You made a patient's experience more unpleasant than it had to be. That's not good, but it's not the end of the world, either; you apologized (I'm assuming), and you can't change the past, so it's time to learn from your mistakes and change the future instead. If this bad experience helps motivate you to change things and make them better for potentially hundreds of people, I think that guy would say his suffering was worth it.

[jshm2]

Seems you're feeling bad for him rather than yourself.

He didn't blame you, but you should take better care next time.