Normalized Deviance and Mitigating the Risk of Serious Medical Errors

The Nurse Keith Show

On episode 448 of The Nurse Keith Show nursing and healthcare career podcast, Keith interviews Rebecca Dodmead, MSN, Ed, a highly experienced critical care nurse and educator who experienced a life-changing and life-threatening injury during a routine surgery. In the course of their conversation, Keith and Becca dive deep into how normalized deviance and knowledge gaps put patients at great risk of otherwise wholly preventable errors and harm.

Rebecca Dodmead has an extensive background in critical care and the ED. As an educator, she has served as both an adjunct college nursing instructor and hospital educator. Rebecca sustained a preventable injury during what was hoped to be a routine laparoscopic hysterectomy. This unfortunate event — the result of normalized deviance, significant knowledge gaps, and delays in care — found Becca navigating life with a colostomy, a wound vac, pleural effusions, a subsequent divert ileostomy, and other life-changing obstacles.

In light of what happened to her, Becca wants to use this experience to educate nurses and prevent it from happening to anyone else. Becca has also founded Artisans for Good, a nonprofit that she hopes to use as a vehicle to help others navigating serious illness.

Becca is proud to be a student in the inaugural class of Doctorate of Nursing Education at Ohio State University, with the expectation of graduating in May of 2025.

Connect with Rebecca Dodmead:

• Artisans for Good
• LinkedIn

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Did you know that you can now earn CEUs from listening to podcasts? That’s right — over at RNegade.pro, they’re building a library of nursing podcasts offering continuing education credits, including episodes of The Nurse Keith Show! So just head over to RNegade.pro, log into the portal, select Nurse Keith (or any other Content Creator) from the Content Creator dropdown, and get CEs for any content on the platform!

Nurse Keith is a holistic career coach for nurses, professional podcaster, published author, award-winning blogger, inspiring keynote speaker, and successful nurse entrepreneur. Connect with Nurse Keith at NurseKeith.com, and on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Nurse Keith lives in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico with his lovely fiancée, Shada McKenzie, a highly gifted traditional astrologer and reader of the tarot. You can find Shada at The Circle and the Dot.

The Nurse Keith Show is a proud member of The Health Podcast Network, one of the largest and fastest-growing collections of authoritative, high-quality podcasts taking on the tough topics in health and care with empathy, expertise, and a commitment to excellence. The podcast is adroitly produced by Rob Johnston of 520R Podcasting, and Mark Capispisan is our stalwart social media ringmaster and newsletter wrangler.