Nursing Reflective Essay

When nurses are faced with administering medication(s) that they are not familiar with, a plethora of feelings and emotions are ignited. Issues arise including, but not limited to: safety, side effects, interactions with other medications, and being unable to inform the patient about the medication. The first feeling that comes to my mind is scared. I would be scared to administer a medication that I was not educated about. Then, my thoughts would be for the patient. How can I expect someone to willingly take a medication without an explanation of what the medicine is and what it will do? Feelings of incompetence, fear, disappointment, and unsafe. Education is one of the most important aspects of medical care. Without the ability to pass along the needed knowledge, I would feel at a disadvantage.

I have refused to administer a

More often than not, the physicians look to the nurses for guidance. Let me explain that statement. Nurses are great about learning something new, and keeping up-to-date on emerging research. At times, some of the physicians are not aware of practice changes. I find that to be true more of in-house changes rather than medical profession changes, but none the less, they are unaware. News travels fast when it comes to something that creates a disturbance, the bad decision would filter outside of my department into other departments, as well as other facilities. One would have to work perfectly for a lifetime to make amends for such a mistake, if amends were made at all. The number of colleagues to any medical professional is countless; so, future decisions should be guided by evidence-based knowledge, drug manuals, research, collaboration with supervisors or co-workers, and the physician. Knowing when to seek guidance in an unknown situation is paramount. Safety is always