A failed perioperative nursing journal club: Reflections on mistakes made, and lessons learned

Abstract

Have you ever had a great idea, and pursued it enthusiastically with all your skill, abilities and enthusiasm, only to have it fail? I have.

My great idea was to start a perioperative nursing journal club in my workplace, a small four-theatre complex in a busy rural public hospital in NSW. It failed. As clinicians, we are usually more than happy to share our  successes, but less ready to share our failures. The purpose of this paper is to share the experience of this failure, the mistakes I made, and the lessons I learned. It will discuss learning from our mistakes, the reality of evidence-based practice, journal clubs: barriers and requirements for success, and my own experience and reflections on attempting to start a perioperative nursing journal club.