Nursing Misconduct

Ethical issues have always affected the role of the professional nurse. Efforts to enact this standard may cause conflict in health care settings in which the traditional roles of the nurse are delineated within a bureaucratic structure. Nurses have more direct contact with patients than one can even imagine, which plays a huge role in protecting the patients’ rights, and creating ethical issues for the nurses caring for the various patients they are assigned to. In this paper I will discuss some of the ethical and legal issues that nurses are faced with each and every day.

Nurses are responsible for multiple patients on any given day making medication errors a potential problem in the nursing field. Medication administration not only encompasses passing medication to the patients yet begins with the physician prescribing the medication, pharmacy filling the correct prescription and ending with the nurse administering and monitoring the patient for any adverse effect from the medication. According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP), ‘A medication error refers to any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional,

Provision 8.1 of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics denotes that health is a universal right. The provision states, “the nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy, and reduce health disparities” (Lachman, Swanson, & Windland-Brown, 2015, p. 365). From chapter 1, the ethical theory that best fits provision 8.1 is utilitarianism. The ethical theory of utilitarianism theorizes “one should act so as to do the greatest good for the greatest number” (Baillie, McGeehan, Garrett, & Garrett, 2013, p. 4). This theory promotes a universal method because it signifies that even if a decision is made and does not benefit every single person; however, benefits most

While this is a serious error by institutional standards, it fails to meet the tort definition of negligence. There was a duty of care to this patient who was admitted to the hospital. A breach of that duty occurred when the patient was given the incorrect medication. The requirement of injury necessary to meet the definition of negligence was not me. There was no reported adverse outcome reported from the single dose of the incorrect medication. Due to lack of injury, there appears to be no risk to the institution from negligence surrounding the medication

Professionalism is a very important key in the nursing profession. It is what paints a good image for a business or, in this case, an organization, people will most likely choose the professional organization over the unprofessional, because with the nurses that are professional they have great quality in customer service. Examples being, nurses that are professional aren’t rude or disruptive, they handle business in a kindly manner, following directions and policies etc. Unprofessionalism in nursing practice continues to hinder the expansion of the field. There are many things that nurses do that are highly unprofessional at the workplace. A few major unprofessional mistakes nurses tend to do is, bullying, breaking HIPPA, and behavior. To me, these are the biggest mistakes that really pop out at me.

Administering the wrong prescription for a patient can be viewed as a negligent act as well as a bad ethical decision. As much as this act leans more towards negligence, it is only right to assume the existence of poor ethical standards. If nurse maintained a high standard and value towards occupation, the right medication would have been giving to the patient.

“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

According to the American Nurses Association (ANA) states on the safeguarding and promotion of human rights pertaining to medical services in an essential function of the association. The nurses should be aware in the events where individuals have limited or diminished ability to exercise their rights and the ethical issues in particular the children, mentally disabled, and critically ill. (ANA, 2001).

As defined by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA, 2015), a medication error is “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient.” In order to prevent harm by medications, nurses and nursing students alike are required to adhere to the “seven patient rights,” which help eliminate any possible errors in the medication administration process. These seven rights include: right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, right time, right action and right documentation. However, many medication errors continue to occur because one or more of these rights is either violated, or omitted altogether. Research done by Polifroni, et al. (2003), shows that the most common errors in medication administration are those involving the time of administration and the dosage amount. These errors are often a direct result of the nurse’s increasingly chaotic practicing environment. Increasing nursing shortages create a larger patient load for each nurse, making is easier for the nurse to get distracted and inadvertently miss the dose,

Once the nurse realized the medication error, she alerted the charge nurse for help. The charge nurse looked over the medication scheduled times and realized that even though the medication was given on time, the dose was off 24 hours ago by 1 hour and 30 minutes. Since that dose was off schedule 24 hours ago, the nurse was to give that dose at the same time as the other dose was given. Once the nurse understood her mistake, the resident on call was notified of the error and a medication safety report was filled.

My experience with issue of medication error occurred during my pre-graduate clinical in a long term facility, I and the preceptor were administering medications during lunch time. One of the residents came from leave of absence, prior to her LOA, the daughter who was the POA was given the resident’s medications, including insulin. When she returned to the facility, her medication was administered as per scheduled time without having knowledge when the last insulin was given, fifteen minutes thereafter, the personal care provider noticed that this particular resident was not eating and appears to be sweating, the PCP reported to us, on assessment she was found to be shaking, sweating and loss of consciousness and her glucose level was

Diverse societies are handicapped due to this renowned unlawful abuse of drugs. Every day numbers of people on streets are increasing due to the black market of drugs. Once somebody started consuming any kind of dope; there’s no looking back. Being in nursing profession I am absolutely attentive of the sincerity of this situation. I happen to perceive a related case at my work place. One of my co-workers was placed on morphine by her physician after a mishap. After consuming approved dosage of morphine for prescribed time she supposed to discontinue taking drug. However, she consumed higher dosage than permitted by GP. Therefore, when she reached the point to impede the drug; she got addicted by that time. Even at job site she used to be hovered

Thank you for sharing your point of views. Be honest, I feel scary and stressful after I found out so many rules are applied to constraint nurses' misconduct. It seems that it is very easy to fall into one or two of these rules if a nurse does not adhere to the standard of practice and use the best judgment. I understand that these rules are inevitably required by the Board of Nursing and New York State of Department of Health in order to ensure safe practicing and protect the public. According to New York State Education Department (NYSED) on the detail definitions of professional misconduct (2017), the examples of these misconducts are: improper delegation, abusive actions, failure to obtain consent, breach of confidentiality, failure to

The combination of professionalism and ethics can be equated with an extraordinary nurse because they are core components in the nursing profession and crucial to patient trust, confidence and wellbeing. Having a degree in nursing is not what makes one a professional. Professionalism is

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