Relationship Between Obedience And Authority In Health Care

Frequently in health care you hear of stories where nurses follow a questionable directive from a physician. At the hospital recently, a scenario like this occurred in the emergency room. After performing an exam, the doctor felt the patient was stable enough to go home, although the nurse disagreed and felt the patient needed additional monitoring. The nurse followed the doctor’s order and sent the patient home. It was not until later that the nurse spoke up to a supervisor to discuss her uneasiness over the care of the patient. In health care, we work diligently to remove barriers to quality care, although despite this work, scenarios like the one above are all too common. In health care, organizations must create an open culture where employees

Obedience can be found in any situation with a hierarchy of power, such as supervisor and employee or doctor and nurse. Obedient is defined as “submissive to the restraint or command of authority” (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, n.d.). By the definition of obedient, it is evident that obedience is dependent on some level of authority. Authority is defined as the “legal and/or moral right to exercise power” (Douglas & Tenney, 1987, p. 110). There would be no obedience necessary without a position of

To facilitate this open sharing, the authority and obedience relationship should be analyzed. Health care professionals have been studying the improvements being made in the aviation industry and trying to develop similar improvement strategies for health care systems. One of those barriers is health care teams and physician absolute authority. Physician authority makes it difficult for staff to question decisions or performance if patient care concerns arise. Humans make mistakes and health care culture must change to allow team members to respectfully question authority and bring important information to light without the risk of losing one’s job or reputation (Silbaugh & Skiles,