Contributor – Brittany Haynes
A nursing student once stood frozen during simulation after realizing she had miscalculated a medication dose. No real patient was harmed, and everyone in the room knew that. Still, she was shaken. During debrief, she quietly said, “I will never forget this.” That moment stayed with me, not because of the math error itself, but because I could see something shifting in her. She was not simply correcting a calculation; she was confronting what it feels like to carry responsibility for another human being. The emotional weight of nursing became tangible. It was not about getting the answer wrong, but about recognizing the gravity of practice.
We often say simulation is a safe place to make mistakes, and that language matters. But I keep wondering whether mistakes in nursing are more than something we try to contain. What if constructive failure is part of how nurses are formed? Nursing has never been about flawless performance. It is about showing up where certainty is limited and vulnerability is real. When learners make mistakes in safe environments, they encounter their limits in unsettling and formative ways. It exposes the gap between what they know intellectually and what it feels like to hold responsibility in their hands.
Philosophers have long suggested that growth does not occur through perfection but through reflection on disruption. Dewey (1948) reminds us that experience alone does not educate; meaning emerges when we reconstruct understanding after something unsettles us. In nursing education, this often unfolds during debriefing, where learners examine what occurred and how they were thinking and responding (Rudolph et al., 2014). When handled relationally rather than punitively, these moments allow discomfort to become insight. Rather than collapsing into shame, learners begin to ask what they assumed and where their reasoning faltered. Reflection reorganizes understanding and reshapes accountability and judgment. Confidence becomes less about appearing competent and more about being attentive and responsive. In this way, constructive failure is not about celebrating error but recognizing that reflection can transform limitation into wisdom.
Constructive failure can also be understood through Falk-Rafael’s Critical Caring Theory as a relational encounter grounded in mutuality, presence, and shared humanity (Falk-Rafael, 2018). In practice, what matters most is not the error itself but how it is experienced within relationship. When learners struggle in simulation or clinical settings, the educator’s response becomes part of the learning encounter, shaping whether discomfort turns into shame or reflection. In supportive environments, discomfort can be held rather than intensified, allowing learners to examine their assumptions honestly and without defensiveness. From this perspective, constructive failure is not only cognitive or technical but relational, shaping how we understand accountability and responsibility in practice.
When we think about nursing as relational and whole, mistakes no longer appear as merely technical problems. Nursing is interpretive and moral work carried out in real relationships and situations. If we treat mistakes only as something to eliminate, we shrink nursing to metrics and checklists. Approached differently, mistakes deepen discernment and humility and shape how we understand responsibility and presence within complex human situations.
Of course, safety and accountability remain essential. This reflection is not an argument for lowering standards or excusing carelessness. It is an argument for recognizing that becoming a nurse involves more than mastering procedures and memorizing protocols. It involves living with uncertainty, reflecting honestly when things do not go as planned, and moving forward without collapsing into shame. Professional formation requires spaces where vulnerability can be acknowledged without being weaponized.
The student who said she would never forget her mistake was not marked by incompetence but by formation. That experience shaped her understanding of responsibility in a way no lecture could. She will likely double-check calculations more carefully, but more importantly, she will remember what it felt like to hold that weight.
I return to this idea: mistakes are not the opposite of nursing excellence. When approached relationally and reflectively, they are often one of the ways excellence takes shape. To become a nurse is not to eliminate all error but to cultivate courage, humility, and disciplined inquiry in the presence of human vulnerability. Constructive failure, uncomfortable as it may be, is part of that becoming.
I wonder how differently we might teach if we understood mistakes not as something to avoid, but as something that forms us.
References
Dewey, J. (1948). Experience and education. Macmillan.
Falk-Rafael, A. R. (2018, August 20). Critical caring. Nursology. https://nursology.net/nurse-theories/critical-caring/
Rudolph, J. W., Raemer, D. B., & Simon, R. (2014). Establishing a safe container for learning in simulation: The role of the presimulation briefing. Simulation in Healthcare, 9(6), 339–349. https://doi.org/10.1097/SIH.0000000000000047
About Brittany Haynes
Brittany Haynes, MSN, RNC-NIC, CNE, is a PhD student at Texas Woman’s University whose work explores how relational aneoryd reflective learning environments shape professional formation in nursing. She teaches in undergraduate nursing education, with a focus on simulation-based learning, and is particularly interested in how moments of uncertainty, vulnerability, and mistakes contribute to clinical judgment and identity development. Her scholarly interests include psychological safety and simulation pedagogy.