Negligence and malpractice are increasing within nursing fields even though nurses and students who will become nurses are educated about their legal and professional responsibilities and limitations. Negligence is a failure of fulfilling the responsibilities that the nurse has which results in malpractice. A nurse can be sued for malpractice when she fails to take care of the patient; it results in patient’s injury, however we should keep in mind that not every case ends with the injury, but still it is a malpractice. Many nurses are not fully committed to perform the skills they should, and they enter the profession only because of benefits. Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurse’s results in malpractice. Nurses who lack the experience and knowledge fail their duty, and when it happen not only them but also the hospital in which they work bear the consequences. Because most nurses are employees of hospitals, hospitals are frequently defendant in nursing malpractice cases. Here is an excellent example of nursing negligence and malpractice cases which effects not only the patient, but also the primary nurse, student nurse, the hospital and the school of nursing. The name of the case study is “hospital falls
“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.” Nursing is more than just doing assessments and giving medications; it is going beyond that to know what is right or wrong, what can and cannot be done, and what is considered harming the patients rather than doing them good. In nursing, there is a fine line between what is considered to be negligence and beneficence. According to Marquis (2017), “Ethics is the systemic study of what a person’s conduct and actions should be with regard to self, others human beings, and the environment (pg. 83), on the other hand, it does not necessarily mean that their
The negligence of this incident had a negative impact on the patient’s family members. Approximately 25% of cases involving medical negligence involve poor nursing care. Another negative aspect was patient’s family follow up was poor resulting in lack of importance highlighted on the pressure wounds. Ashley (2003) states nurses can be sued for malpractice, this means he or she is being sued for “negligence”. Furthermore, the nursing health professionals can lose its credibility among a community as they failed to provide a holistic care for the patient. However, a positive outcome was nurses were able to reflect among this evidence based practice to assist in better quality in patient
As a nurse it has happened to be an essential need to be conscious of the legal aspects associated with caring and serving people in the health industry today. Unfortunately, only fewer people want to get into the health care field fearing the legal aspects and the predictable law suits. The Tort Law is one of the legal aspects of the law that most nurses is more familiar with. This is the law that involved misconduct and negligence cases, which many nurses take the time to study in depth. This is one of the most universal and well-known laws, something that nurses and doctors must be familiar with, to maintain their care resourcefully.
Healthcare provider’s perception and judgment in the patient’s well being as well as taking into account the right of the patient in every action is one of the key elements in nursing practice. International Council of Nurses (ICN), (2006) states “The nurse at all times maintains standards of personal conduct which reflect well on the profession and enhance public confidence” (p. 3). Furthermore, nursing action guided by theory and principles of moral and legal
Every medical professional has or will face some ethical and legal issues in the Medical Field, the Nurse Practitioners (NP) are no different. Fant stated that in an ethical dilemma there are no right answers or solutions; however, in these dilemmas there are no wrong answers either. Sule feels that the ethical issues for NPs are in consent and capacity, confidentiality and autonomy, and in the non-compliance on part of patient. Offredy and Townsend both feel that a breech in clinical governance and management can cause
The civil and common laws to protect the client´s rights are calls Torts: A Tort is a civil wrong made against a person or property and this are classified as Intentional Torts when violate another´s right such as false imprisonment and assault battery; Quasi-Intentional torts that is when lacking but volitional action and direct causation occur such as invasion of privacy and deformation of character Unintentional torts with includes Negligence and Malpractice. The improper act that she performed is a Quasi-Intentional tort. In to avoid legal and ethic problems the nurse must always follow the Standard of
Nurses are undoubtedly one of the most trusted professionals worldwide. Patients, family members, and doctors entrust nurses to provide the utmost quality care to sick individuals. Top priorities of all nurses are advocacy for their patients: including advocating for their physical health, holistic welfare, and utmost importantly, their safety. Patient safety will always be the top priority when providing patient care. The nurse’s responsibility during every patient encounter is to ensure that each patient under her care, receives no harm. As a direct result of the previous statement, it is crucial that every nurse knows their rights to refuse unsafe patient assignments, the process to refuse unsafe patient assignments, and the legal or ethical ramifications that could present themselves if proper judgement is not used. By understanding these rules, nurses not only achieve the responsibility of advocating for patient safety but also safeguard their careers and license.
Ellen Hughes Finnerty, a registered nurse, was found guilty of negligence and incompetence, and was consequently disciplined by the Board of Registered Nursing. Accordingly, Finnerty’s license was revoked, and she was placed on a three-year probation. The following timeline gives a detailed summary of events that led to the conclusion of nursing negligence and incompetence on the part of Finnerty (NDC Learning House, 2015).
The first case scenario presented in this project reflect the significance of gaps between nursing programs and textbooks, organizations’ policies and procedures, published literature, and the actual practice. Some of the gaps refer to nursing programs and textbooks based on an ideal nursing profession, the autonomy of healthcare organizations to establish their specific policies and procedures, traditional policies and procedures unsupported by evidence-based practice (EBP), and the individual and organizational barriers that influence the breach between the published literature and the real-world. Literature review was used to demonstrate the negative personal and professional consequences triggered from these gaps when the nurse is employed in the healthcare system. In addition, the paper suggests how improving a “Culture of Safety”, preventing an unsafe environment, and promoting Continuous Quality Improvement activities enhance the overall health care quality and safety. The second case scenario provides guidelines to the ethical dilemma of the impaired nurse, signs and symptoms of impairment, ethical and legal obligations, common reasons for not reporting, and failing to report consequences.
Many people do not ponder on the possibility of some form of malpractice or misdiagnosis occurring during their time as patient. They put their trust solely in the healthcare provider. More importantly nurses hardly ever consider being the one that causes harm or the one whom neglects a patient, let alone misdiagnose a patient. When entering the nursing field one needs to look at all options that will help protect them from sustaining any loss. Many nurses in today’s time are purchasing profession liability insurance or more commonly known as professional indemnity. Professional indemnity helps pay for expenses that occur during malpractice, negligence, and misdiagnosis lawsuits.
“The definition of a health professional is a person who works to protect and improve people’s health by the diagnosis and treatment of illness to bring about a complete recovery from mental, physical and social perspectives, either directly or indirectly (Kurban, 2010, pg. 760).” Nurses in the community today have acquired an increasing responsibility to intervene with medical decisions. In the past, there were clear differences between nurses and doctors. It was more common for a nurse to be supervised directly under the physician. They are not just performing Doctor’s orders anymore. The nurse role in patient care has been widely expanded. Allegations against someone can be one of the most stressful moments of their careers. Negligence
Nurses are constantly challenged by changes which occur in their practice environment and are under the influence of internal or external factors. Due to the increased complexity of the health system, nowadays nurses are faced with ethical and legal decisions and often come across dilemmas regarding patient care. From this perspective a good question to be raised would be whether or not nurses have the necessary background, knowledge and skills to make appropriate legal and ethical decisions. Even though most nursing programs cover the ethical and moral issues in health care, it is questionable if new nurses have the depth of knowledge and understanding of these issues and apply them in their practice
Nurses should be aware that their negligence causes very bad effects on patients and should be anxious about medical malpractice because nurses are held answerable for their own negligence and could find themselves being charged for malpractice. (Elis, 2012).
In this report is a fully reasoned quantification of, our client, Mr. Steven Pearson’s personal injury claim against Mr. Fred Prendergast.
There are many different variations of healthcare professionals that assist people in regaining and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The career field of licensed nursing is often considered to be one of the most vital professions within the medical community. Registered nurses work to prevent and heal various different types of injuries, diseases, and illnesses. They are also responsible for administering a variety of patient services, consisting of individual patient care, analyzing and monitoring patient medical reports, and also possessing the ability to operate technical medical equipment. As well as, be able provide comfort and emotional support for both physically, and mentally ill patients. All Registered Nurses are responsible for providing patients with quality health care, in compliance with professional standards set forth by the American Nurses Association. As the field continues to rapidly evolve, an increase in responsibility is placed upon registered nurses to maintain a professional standard of care. With the increase in responsibility, the role of registered nurses consistently changes to accommodate individual patient needs. As a result, the rise in responsibility placed on registered nurses correlates to a higher probability of malpractice and negligence occurring within the community. The consequences of malpractice and negligence can