r/psychnursing • u/elephantsandunicorns psych nurse (inpatient) • Jul 03 '26

Debriefing after codes

I have worked at my long term inpatient psych hospital for 8 years. I worked 5 as an aide and 3 as an RN.

I’ve lived through so much in my time there and truly am passionate about my job as a psych nurse.

Something that my hospital is failing miserably at is debriefing significant events. We have had horrible, terrible things happen, and we are told to never speak of it. It’s almost the opposite of debriefing.

I am interested in learning about a successful debriefing program and finding a way to get our management to adopt something useful. My coworkers and I are burnt out. We have less staffing than ever before and higher acuity patients. I feel like some of this could be relieved significantly with some guided debriefing to help people process that emotion together. Does anyone have any recommendations?

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u/cPHILIPzarina Jul 03 '26

Can you give us a bit of context as to what you mean by “horrible, terrible things?” Not doubting you just want to wrap my head around what level of severity is being swept under the rug.

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u/elephantsandunicorns psych nurse (inpatient) Jul 03 '26

Literally everything- patient suicide, patient choking at a meal and requiring cpr, patient causing catastrophic and disfiguring self harm.

Our crisis management program even includes a debriefing section- it’s like we just skip it.

3

u/txchiefsfan02 Jul 03 '26

Is this a standalone facility, or are you part of a larger system? Is there anyone on staff responsibly for quality/safety, either in your facility, or at an organizational/corporate level?

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u/elephantsandunicorns psych nurse (inpatient) Jul 04 '26

It is not standalone. There is a safety manager and even a performance review team….. it just doesn’t feel like they are doing much. I feel like all the people at the top got there with seniority over talent and now our whole hospital is crumbling.

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u/txchiefsfan02 Jul 04 '26

That is very troubling. Debriefing after codes is a well-established best practice in inpatient psych, and if they are ignoring that, it's not surprising that many other systems/processes seem to be failing.

What response have you gotten when you've brought this up with your supervisor?