A surgery that resulted in harm to the patient, a misdiagnosis, a delay in treating a disease, and a medication error: these are all examples of a medical injury. But no matter what form medical injury takes, it is always a break in trust, a realisation that entrusting one’s body to a professional has gone wrong.
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Physical injuries heal eventually, and they are often attended to first. However, what happens after them is rarely considered. Changes in perception of one’s own safety, attitude towards the body, and comfort in the clinical environment are part of the psychological recovery process that will influence patients’ lives long after physical injuries have healed.
This paper addresses the aspects of psychological recovery after a medical injury: unnamed grief that many people experience, practical ways of rebuilding trust and comfort in one’s body and clinical environment, and why clarifying what has happened is important.
Grief That No One Names
In case of an accident, there is usually a place for the emotion to be felt. However, when it comes from a person who should take care of oneself, naming this emotion can be quite challenging. People often call this feeling “anger” or “betrayal”.
Sometimes this emotion comes unexpectedly: a whiff of hand sanitiser that brings one back to the ward, a hospital logo letter that is left unopened on the kitchen table for a week. Friends ask how one is “getting on now”, but it is hard to respond, and people just say that they are “fine”.
This reaction requires respect. People experience grief: disappointment in the result, the feeling of missing the version of one’s health. Calling it grief instead of forcing oneself to be “fine” is usually the first step to overcoming it.
Feeling It Before Trying To Fix It
When the process of physical recovery starts, there is a huge pressure to rush through it and prove that it is all over. Resisting this impulse is usually helpful.
There are several simple techniques that people can use, and they do not require retreat or any extra time:
- List three good things about your body every morning. Injuries make one focus on the negative aspect; listing positive qualities helps to broaden this perspective.
- Keep a diary with just two lines a day. Not a gratitude diary if it seems to be forced; just write how the day was. Over a fortnight, patterns may start emerging.
- Breathe before an appointment, not just during it. Take four slow breaths in the car park before entering the clinic. It may seem silly, but it can help ease the anticipatory anxiety that is often worse than the actual appointment.
These techniques will not get rid of the experience, but they send regular signals to the nervous system that the danger has passed and that it is time to recover the sense of safety.
Rebuilding Trust In The Body And In Medicine
One of the biggest losses caused by a medical injury is the loss of trust in one’s body’s sensations. If one experiences signs that have been overlooked or if a procedure has gone wrong, it is natural to question every new ache. Is it just a healing process or another problem?
This hypervigilance is exhausting and understandable. Usually, it passes, but never on the schedule one is trying to follow.
Another challenge is returning to the healthcare system. Some people tend to avoid it, which is often the worst thing for their health. A more appropriate strategy is to rebuild trust in healthcare on one’s own conditions: find a practitioner who makes one comfortable, attend appointments in pairs, and write all the questions beforehand. Trust built slowly and carefully is usually stronger than forced trust.
Getting The Answers That Let People Move On
This is something that people do not like to admit, but the main source of distress is the lack of information. Lack of information about what has gone wrong and what caused it. Lack of information about whether the situation was avoidable. Lack of information about the risk of the same thing happening again.
Lack of information makes one anxious. One’s mind revolves around unanswered questions. For many people, getting closure becomes possible after learning what happened and what the causes and consequences of the situation were.
This is a practical step, not an emotional one. Requesting one’s medical records, receiving a formal explanation, and learning about the rights of the patients is a reasonable step, even if the process seems unpleasant. In case the injury looks avoidable, consulting with experienced medical negligence lawyers can provide one with clarity on the situation long before taking legal action. Even if one does not plan to take any steps regarding a case, learning about the options calms one; instead of vague “what if”, one gets a clear picture and some facts to address.
Here is an important point to consider. This is not about revenge, and it is not necessarily about compensation. For many people, it is about getting answers and accountability, the same drive that pushes one to diagnose an issue in the first place.
Steps That Add Up
Recovery of this kind is not achieved at once. It gradually builds up. Some of them:
- Finding the right people. Support groups with people who have undergone medical injuries can be more reliable than sympathetic friends, because they do not need to explain everything. There are online support groups too.
- Moving slowly but surely. As much as one can.
- Allowing the timeline to be personal. Someone will always say that it is high time to move on. He or she is wrong, and most likely says this for their own comfort, not yours.
- Asking for help if low mood and anxiety persist. It is not a weakness to consult a GP or a therapist with experience in medical trauma. It is exactly the self-advocacy that helped people diagnose the issue in the first place.
Turning Point That No One Saw Coming
No one would have chosen such a way to grow. Given the choice, everyone would have returned the experience.
However, many people who survived the medical injury claim that they have found themselves somewhere unexpected: a clearer view on priorities, a greater dislike of waste of time, and newfound skills of self-advocacy that transfer into many other spheres of life. Not despite the broken trust, but because rebuilding it helped people to pay closer attention to their needs.
The care has gone wrong. It is a fact, and it deserves better treatment. But what happens next is up to people.
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Our Editorial Team are writers and experts in their field. Their views and opinions may not always be the views of Wellbeing Magazine. If you are under the direction of medical supervision please speak to your doctor or therapist before following the advice and recommendations in these articles.
