I have worked in an acute care hospital for almost four years and I have seen many things that I consider questionable and that goes against my ethics both as a person and a nurse. One of those dilemmas that I recently encountered was a nurse who made a mistake about administering a medication and was wondering what to do about it. Her excuse was that it was the night shift nurse that should have carried out the order and that since she was on the day shift she was not at fault. Come to find out, she was just too busy to check the patients order because it was entered during shift change and that the night shift nurse did in fact let her know about the order. Since the night shift nurse was not there to defend herself, no one could question what happened at the time. The only reason why the truth was exposed was because the night nurse happened to come in for another shift and the physician of the patient mentioned …show more content…
the situation to her in passing. This incident made the patient and physician frustrated. Therefore, the situation was brought to the attention of the unit manager and the problem had gone on for much longer than it needed to. So the question is, are there times when it is acceptable to avoid or even cover up a mistake made? To me, there should be no question as to owning up to your mistake of making a medical error. I think that covering up a mistake is never acceptable.
Everyone makes mistakes, so it is perfectly fine to admit to it. I feel that if you make a mistake and do not say anything, the consequence will be far worse then actually taking ownership of your actions and letting them know you have learned from it. Now this can be taken a step further. Who do you tell? Do you tell the physician, your manager, or the patient? The answer is everybody needs to know. Especially if it affects the patient. A simple mistake can greatly impact the patient by choosing not to disclose the event. Depending on the situation, it can even cost the patient their life. We also have to protect ourselves. Our license that we worked so hard to earn and maintain will be put in jeopardy. Our license holds great value and should not be put on the line due to ones pride. We should not be afraid to seek help in aiding us on when or how to reveal our mistake. We should also be humble enough to seek advise on how to fix or prevent a similar mistake from happening again in the
future. No one is perfect. Physicians, nurses, medical personnel, and even patients should realize that taking the time to explain the situation can prevent a situation from becoming worse that it is. Owning up to your mistake in the first place can be the best way, in my eyes, to remedy the situation. It is the morally correct thing to do and should not be stopped just because you are scared of the repercussions. Potentially harming a patient or even yourself, because you are covering your tracks is not the best way to go about doing things especially in a health care setting.
Nurses are required to protect and support their patients if they are to be an efficient patient advocate. Ethically questionable situations are quite common for nurses that conflict with their professionals and personal morals. At times, the patient necessitates the nurse to speak out for them demonstrating
I agree with you that the nurses violated provision 9 of the nursing code of ethics. Nurses have an obligation to themselves, their whole team and to the patients to express their values. Communication is key in a hospital, so everyone knows what is correct and what isn’t within the workplace. In order to have a productive, ethical, positive environment. These values that should be promoted affect everyone in the hospital, especially the patients, and can have a negative outcome if those values are not lived out. Nurses have to frequently communicate and reaffirm the values they are supposed follow frequently so when a difficult situation comes along that may challenge their beliefs they will remain strong and their values will not falter.
Planning included reaching out to other health organizations, objectives, and goals of health fair were established. The implementation includes getting volunteers, set up for the health fair. The evaluation of the process occurred throughout the implementation and changes were made as needed. The evaluation will be completed by gathering information from health booth to determine the number of participants. Review vendor and participant evaluations about the health fair including how they heard about the health fair, ratings of booths and suggestions for improvements. Record everything to determine changes. Reflection on past experiences and what worked and did not work.
Nurse A seemed confident and calm while nurse B appeared tired. With the first patients, I noticed that both nurses were asking for first and last name and confirmed the information with the picture in the computer and the medication cup. After a few minutes, I turned my attention to nurse B because I noticed she did not ask a particular patient for his name. Instead, she relied on the name provided by a patient care technician. When she was about to give the medication to the patient, nurse A noticed that the patient on the computer screen was not the patient on the counter. She immediately told nurse B “ That is not Mr… girl ” and nurse B responded while laughing “ He looks exactly like …, I need to get some coffee ASAP”. The patient immediately realized what happened and told nurse B his name. After that, nurse B reached for the right cup and administered the medication to the patient. Even though a medication error was not committed and no harm was inflicted to the patient, by violating important QSEN competencies this incident could have caused a negative patient outcome.
Since you examined the number of moral issues you will face in this profession, look through the code of ethics that you chose for this assignment and explain
This correlates greatly with provision six which states: “The nurse facilitates improvement of the healthcare environment.” (Nurses Code of Ethics, 2015). As stated previously a nurses’ obligation is to help with creating and maintaining that balance of great virtues as well as excellence in the health care professions. If you think about it, if a nurse did have moral health ethics, would that nurse give unsafe patients and falsify a shift report change to the new nurse, so they could leave work? In addition, any nurse who witnesses such a false act by another nurse should report such an act immediately to their immediate. No nurse should ever agree or choose to work in an environment that enables unsafe practices. Not only are they putting the patients at risk they would be putting themselves at risk for physical harm or even losing their license as
This case study examines a case of an LPN who became ill while about halfway through her shift and chose to go home. This LPN was assigned to care for five patients in an obstetrical ward, four of which were considered stable. The fifth patient was awaiting an obstetrical consultation when the LPN became ill and vomited. At this time, she notified the other nurses and, subsequently, the charge nurse that she needed to leave due to illness. The charge nurse instructed her to notify her supervisor prior to leaving the facility; however, the LPN chose not to do so and went home. Her reasoning in not notifying her supervisor as she was instructed was that she feared that the supervisor would ask her to go to the emergency room for care. The LPN testified that she did not want to pay for an emergency visit and that she intended to make an appointment with her family doctor early that same day. The facility terminated the LPN’s contract and also reported her to the state board of nursing for patient abandonment. As a judgment, the board of nursing suspended here nursing license pending a psychological examination and fined her $1000 for abandoning her patients. In this paper, we will examine the viewpoints of the LPN, the charge nurse, and the nursing supervisor as they relate to the Nurse Practice Act and the board of nursing.
Define a critical thinking task that your staff does frequently (Examples: treat high blood sugar, address low blood pressure, pain management, treating fever etc.). Create a concept map or flow chart of the critical thinking process nurses should take to determining the correct intervention. Include how much autonomy a nurse should have to apply personal wisdom to the process. If the critical thinking process was automated list two instances where a nurse may use “wisdom” to override the automated outcome suggested. Note the risks and benefits of using clinical decision making systems.
Through centuries nurses were given the title “Caregivers”. Unlike some doctors, nurses actually care for their patients, not necessarily saying doctors do not; they both just have a different way of caring. Yes, doctors cure illnesses, but nurses are just as important because they help with the healing process. Most nurses can have the same exact education or knowledge as a medical physician but the only thing individuals see is a name tag with either the acronym CNA, LPN, R.N. and PH.D. Of course PH.D will get all the credit, seeing as how nurses do not exactly diagnose patients. A nurse could just become a doctor but there are different aspects of each title. Nurses take instructions from a higher administrator, which is sometimes a doctor. What needs to be known is doctors are not the only ones that stress and have rules to abide by. Nurses have ethical codes, daily ethical dilemmas, morals, and ridiculous distress, but some of these examples differ with country, state, and hospital. If nurses are capable, then they should be given the opportunity to make medical decisions or diagnosis in critical situations.
When the practices in the healthcare delivery system or organization threaten the welfare of the patient, nurses should express their concern to the responsible manager or administrator, or if indicated, to an appropriate higher authority within the institution or agency or to an appropriate external authority” (3.5 protection of patient health and safety by acting on questionable practice, ANA, 2015). The example of the practice is a patient discharge from the rehab facility to the Personal care unit with pending PT/INR results, which turned out to be critical. The admitting nurse demonstrated moral courage by questioning physician who wrote discharge orders and the nurse who completed discharge. Rehab physician refused to address lab results and referred the patient to the PCP. Admitting nurse raised a concern to administration to review discharge protocol and deviation from safe practice. Nurse acted on behalf of the patient and requested readmission to rehab based on patient’s unstable medical
I chose to go into nursing because I had taken a sports medicine class in high school I enjoyed, and I thought I would be guaranteed a job graduating that had something to do with medicine. I can remember being so excited to learn how about illnesses and medications, and all the difference procedures done in the hospital. At the time I thought a nurse’s job was to do what the physicians said, and I expected set guidelines that would tell me what I was and wasn’t allowed to do. I had no idea that I was entering onto a career path involving so much complexity, and that the skills I had dreamed of learning were such a small part of nursing in comparison to the emotional, decision making, and critical thinking skills that a nursing career requires. Ethics in nursing was not something that had ever crossed my mind when I chose to take this path, however now ethics is something that I think about every day I am practicing, whether in clinical or theory courses. Ethical theories often come from the idea that because we are human we have the obligation to care about other’s best interests (Kozier et al., 2010), however in nursing ethical practice is not just a personal choice but a professional responsibility.
The ethical situation in question is a culmination of intolerance, ignorance, cultural insensitivity, and failure to follow hospital protocols and procedures. The location of the facility in which the ethical dilemma took place is a small, rural hospital in the Midwest of the United States of America. A new male patient has been admitted and he is currently a practicing Muslim. The facility does not have a large Muslim population and does not have any cultural protocols in place to accommodate the Muslim religion.
Davis J. Anne Diane Marsha and Aroskar A. Mila (2010). Ethical Dilemmas and Nursing Practice. Pearson
Deontology is an ethical theory concerned with duties and rights. The founder of deontological ethics was a German philosopher named Immanuel Kant. Kant’s deontological perspective implies people are sensitive to moral duties that require or prohibit certain behaviors, irrespective of the consequences (Tanner, Medin, & Iliev, 2008). The main focus of deontology is duty: deontology is derived from the Greek word deon, meaning duty. A duty is morally mandated action, for instance, the duty never to lie and always to keep your word. Based on Kant, even when individuals do not want to act on duty they are ethically obligated to do so (Rich, 2008).
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ethical challenges that could be experienced by professional nurses. To set the context of discussion, background is provided in relation to a professional nurse signing her name to a preprinted prescription form as asked by a physician and its relevance of how the board of nursing should find in such a case. The possible ethical challenges for the nurse is the implication of being charged with professional misconduct. The paper focuses mainly on issues relevant to professional misconduct by the nurse and physician.