Trusting Your Gut

What do you do when you know something is wrong with a patient, but don’t have the data to back it up?

Hear the story of Diana Struthers Stanton, who, at the beginning of her 46 years in nursing, cared for a 10-year-old patient with Reye syndrome. The patient’s capillary refill had changed and was slowly getting worse and worse.

Concerned, Diana spoke to her charge nurse and was told not to worry about it.
She spoke with her colleagues who also told her not to worry.
She paged the on-call resident in the middle of the night, but got the same response.

Diana’s gut was telling her something was wrong, but she lacked the clinical data to back it up.

So what do you do?

For insight, Connie spoke with Dr. Sarah Kim, a specialist in emotion-focused mindful psychotherapy, about the importance of trusting your gut.

We’ll also discuss being your patient’s advocate and learning to forgive yourself when things don’t end well despite all your efforts.