A Patient's Ordeal Due to a Nurse's Approach

In the medical profession, personnel are asked to make judgments or draw conclusions based on measureable results. Physical assessments, vitals, CT scan, MRI, biopsy are all activities engaged in to prove abnormalities and make decisions as to the way forward. So having hunches are not considered reliable and rightly so. To decide to give a particular medication because of a mere hunch can lead to serious errors. However, pain which is now considered a part of the vital signs is based on the patients’ philosophy or view point and we (nurses) are told not to ignore but respond. This is highly subjective. It’s viewed how the patient sees it and not as tangible or measurable as the other ways of proving when something is abnormal. The situation to be presented will disclose a patient’s ordeal due to a nurse’s approach to or understanding of pain management. It will also assess whether the nurse responded in accordance to protocol.

The patient is a female in her early twenties who came in the hospital due to sickle cell crisis. She was in grave pain especially in the joints. Her hemoglobin level was low so the Physician ordered 2 bags of packed red blood cells and pain meds Q4hrs. The patient explained many times that the dose the physician ordered was not sufficient and that she needed more help. The nurse promised to contact the physician and to inform her of the response. The fact is she never did and was called urgently hours after to calm her patient who was crying in agony and wanted to go home to be in pain. She screamed out that no one cared. Some nurses were even callus enough to say if she wanted to leave then hand her the relevant document and allow her to go.

The above scenario certainly exposes some actions that are co...

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...h patient care have a comprehensive understanding of how quality and safety issues affect patient outcomes, and integrating QSEN helps to achieve that objective.

Any progress towards moving the healthcare system to a culture of quality and safety has to begin with student education. The safe and effective delivery of patient care necessitates nursing students to understand the complexity of healthcare systems, human limitations, safety design principles, the traits of reliable systems and resources for patient safety (Barnsteiner, 2011). Therefore, integrating and incorporating QSEN helps to place considerable emphasis and steer students towards appreciating and understanding the complexity of care delivery systems. This assignment has actually demonstrated how effective the QSEN can be if the principles offered are applied to each patient in the healthcare system.