Essay On Scope Of Practice In Nursing

All nurses are required to follow the guidelines of the scope of practice for their states board of nursing. Failure to do so can cause harm to a patient and potentially cause the facility, or specifically, the nurse to be sued for malpractice. This can cost the facility large amounts of money. It can also, potentially, cause the nurse a very large sum of money. This is the reason it is very important for all nurses to make sure that they are practicing safely and follow not only their facility policies, but the scope of practice set out by the state. I had the opportunity to do clinical rotations in our local hospital. I had many opportunities to work with nurses that had lots of experience. On one occasion, I was assigned to work with an experienced licensed practical nurse that was working on the medical-surgical floor. The licensed practical nurse had several patients, that had IV medications that were running such as maintenance fluids and antibiotics. The licensed practical nurse had a patient that was on IV pain

I always followed nurses while in school that waited until the end of the shift to do all the charting. This really made me aware that charting should be done real time so that everyone knows what is going on. That article also made me aware of how important it is to give good report, even if you are only going to be away from your patient for a short time. I will start incorporating a more thorough report into my practice. The other thing that I will do is review my states scope of practice for registered nurses along with the facility policies to make sure that I am more aware of what I can and cannot do legally as a nurse. The other thing that I am going to do is consider my own personal malpractice coverage. After reading all this information, even though I am a safe practitioner, it would be wise to protect