TW: blood, hospital, surgery

I work in an operating room as an anesthesia tech. I’ve worked in operating rooms before and loved it, but these last 6 months have been god awful. We’re a lower level hospital so we don’t get very many “serious” emergencies but Monday night they had a routine emergency surgery that went very badly very quickly. My manager pulled me into her office yesterday and basically told me it was my fault this young patient almost died. 

I’m the only tech there and so I set up the machines, stock all their supplies, set up emergency IV kits, are at their becking call and have a long list of things I have to do that aren’t even related to my job that my manager has piled on since I started. And shockingly a lot of these doctors don’t even know how to set up/check their machines. They’ll often call me on my lunch break to make sure the machine is ready to be used for the next case. And to top it off I was only trained for MAYBE two weeks before they said one morning “we’re short staffed so we’re pushing you out of the nest!”

I leave at 2:30 and don’t take call so if the supplies aren’t stocked after I leave I usually get blamed for them not having stuff during night cases. This happened Monday night. I stocked one of the rooms before I left, and they still had another case in that room after I left. Then came the emergency. She told me in our meeting that the anesthesia doctor didn’t have what they needed and now this young person almost died and is in ICU for my mistake. Nobody knew where the extra intubation blades were, and ironically enough the bright blue box where the blades live are right outside of that specific OR room in full view. 

I was sobbing in her office all snotty and when I told her I couldn’t do it anymore she switched her attitude so quick and was saying “we just want to help you, you can get there” after telling me in detail how this person was squirting blood onto the ceiling and her oxygen level was at 40% (supposed to be in the 90’s) and how my mistake almost killed her and might end up killing her. 

I left early because I couldn’t get it together and told her I was taking today and tomorrow off and I haven’t left my bed. I feel like I can’t breathe and have been on and off crying. I hate myself and feel like I can’t be on earth anymore, but I have younger brothers so I can’t. 

I know logically this isn’t my fault. I wasn’t the doctor who made the mistake. I stocked that room before I left. And it’s definitely not on me that nobody knew where their own supplies were. But oh god I feel like it is. I feel so heavy and awful and like I don’t deserve to be here. My friend I work with said to take this to HR but I almost just want to turn in my badge tomorrow and never go back.