Medication Errors Kendra Jenkins 07/23/2015 Keiser University Florida Abstract With the medication errors of nurses, what they are planning to do means a whole lot. Plenty of times, the media shows the negative sides of nurses and them giving medications wrongfully but almost ignoring the great work that they do over many years. For the most part, nurses are there to help in any way they can. They want their patients to be healthy and feel great again, but no one is perfect and accidents do happen. In any career or job, mistakes can happen. Look at the president; do you think that they did everything right in their various terms in office? Their mistakes can be very detrimental to the lives of tons of people, compare their losses of lives to the lives lost by the mistakes of nurses and that can definitely open your …show more content…
We all make mistakes even though we are forgiven or not. Some mistakes are meaningless and can be unnoticed. However, in nursing, mistakes can lead to someone being in pain, mental grief, or in very extreme cases, even death. But at the end of the day, we are still human and make mistakes. This doesn’t downplay the lives lost but it shows that if lives are at stake, any errors will be publicized dramatically. Understandably so, lives are important and we would always want to ry and limit those mistakes. George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We always need to learn from our previous mistakes especially when lives are at stake. Kimberly Hiatt’s story is proof that even the toughest working nurse, possessing years of commitment, practice, and love for her work, can make a mistake disastrous not only to someone else’s life, but to her
NU 413 Week 9 Discussion Board Post student response to Katie-Lynn Fournier by Kathryn Moultrie Good afternoon Kathie, Enjoyed reading your post, and seeing how other organizations handle the operations of their facility and nursing departments. My biggest concern with improving quality care and patient safety issues in that, the responsibility is not ours alone, our Chief Nurse Executives (CNEs) and Director of Nursing (DON), and senior nursing management staffs to lead the journey Disch J. (2008). I find it overwhelming that the majority of the research literature (studies, surveys and reports believe nursing plays the pivotal role in changing the face of health care and improving quality care and patient safety.
A nurse has many unique struggles when a patient's lives are on the line. “Forty years ago, in the years before Tom Seybold was born, his mother had two mis-carriages. Mary still remembers the look in Laura Seybold’s eyes after the second one” (p. 573); she never forgets the look in Laura’s eyes. Seeing this happened to patient’s can be emotionally hard for a nurse to see because these bond and feelings will stick in a nurse’s mind. Dementia patients are also careful when they see the derogative things to nurses of different ethnicities; however, a nurse needs to try to brush off to continue to
Main Question Post: Discussion 1 The Effect of “To Err Is Human in Nursing Patients rely on health care professionals and institutional organizations for their safety, quality, and well-beings. Nurses are the frontline at the patient bedside, supporting the physician diagnosis and carry out arrays of medical orders for our patients. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report in 1999 titled: “To Err is Human” that revealed a significant amount of medical errors made in healthcare industries mutually conveyed and otherwise (Wakefield, 2008). Medical errors are projected to trigger more demise yearly than all other debilitating ailments combined.
Nurses are responsible to ensure that patients under their care are given safe, effective and ethical care. This meant that when nurses observe harmful practices, it is of their ethical principles to report such wrongdoings to safeguard patients or colleagues against incompetent, unethical and illegal practices. This is complied with the SNB standard of practice where nurses have responsibility and accountability to ensure safe, competent and ethical nursing care for their patients (Singapore Nursing Board, 2011). Nurses based their practices on moral and ethical principles to do good to patients. Therefore, when nurses witness wrongdoings in the organization, it will be against their principles of beneficence to do good and non-maleficence to prevent or do no harm to patients (Couteur, Ford & McLachlan, 2010) if they choose not to
Furthermore, I have learned to be non-judgmental and to recognize and respect the intrinsic worth of each patient and family member. After getting to know the patients and families ' background through two-way communication and being an active listener, I realized that sometimes unexpected and uncontrollable scenarios happen and there is no one to blame. The care that nurses can offer is tantamount to treat to all people receiving care with respect and support patients and families in maintaining their dignity and integrity (Canadian Nurses ' Association, 2017, p.
Abandonment and Nursing The career of nursing is more than just healing the sick. Nursing often causes nurses to face moral and ethical dilemmas. “Ethics refers to principles of right and wrong behaviors, beliefs, and values (Zerwekh & Garneau, 2015, p. 420).” When new graduate nurses begin their careers the first twelve months are a great time to gain a better understanding of personal beliefs and how they can affect patient care.
Malpractice is negligence, offense, or breach of duty by a professional individual that causes a patient to be injured. Much of the time, it includes when a nurse did not meet a standard of care or to deliver care that he or she should deliver in a similar situation. According to Standards of Practices “Standard 2: Responsibility and Accountability”, the nurses have to maintain, practice, respect and promote patient’s autonomy, as well as to provide care in a responsible and accountable manner. However, keeping the truth from a patient will not enable them to come to terms with their condition and give them the alternative for further treatment. Hence, it would be better to tell the patient the truth to guarantee that the nurse will not face any lawful issues unless the patient has a lack of decision-making capacity which could be caused by mental illnesses, such as dementia or being
Medication Errors in Healthcare The nursing profession entails many responsibilities that range from providing emotional support to administering medications that could result in death for those receiving care. Approximately 40% of a nurse's day consists of passing medication, a duty that sets their level of liability above many other healthcare professions (McCuistion, Vuljoin-DiMaggio, Winton, Yeager, & Kee, 2018). Despite today's advances in technology and nursing education, the frequency of medication errors is still staggering. To ensure that the benefits of nursing outweigh the risks, nurses look to the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) six core competencies for guidance.
One mistake can be caught on camera by those who are distrustful of nurses. Overall, Fowler article was extremely unsuccessful at pusadering her audience to take action and become a part of policy making in healthcare because of her structural errors and usage of irrelevant sources in a failed attempt to build credibility with her audience. Fowler’s structural weaknesses in her organization and thesis statement was not persuasive, thus leaving her readers confused. Fowler first begins her article with background information about her topic, stating the history of Nursing. She outlines extensive details about the founding of the code of ethics for three paragraphs, which was not necessary for her argument.
Four fundamental concepts of a negligent tort include duty, breach of duty, and cause of an actual injury (Showalter, 2017). Nurses have a duty to provide quality care to their patients. Any breach of this duty that results in harm to the patient can lead to legal claims of negligence. Negligence can encompass actions such as medication errors, failure to properly assess and monitor patients, and inadequate communication with the healthcare team. Although intentional torts are less common in nursing practice, they still warrant consideration.
Within the daily interaction with patients, nurses are confronted with deep emotions like fear, frustration, stress, anxiety and disappointment (Trewich, 2008:16). Nurses differ in their ability to work through these emotions. The majority of nurses can successfully work through them and carry on, but
Nursing is a profession that is physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging. In order to effectively manage these hardships, nurses need to be aware of their shortcomings and seek support from others. Unfortunately, the problem lies in nurses not addressing their sufferings. According to Kelly (1996), “to know something is wrong and say nothing, we indirectly consent to what has occurred and we become a part of the problem” (p. 32). At the beginning of her nursing career, Shalof (2005) expressed her feelings of inadequacy in critical thinking, intuition, and courage (p. 72) but did not open up to others.
It was my second day on the job, fresh out of nursing school with a wealth of knowledge but very little experience, when I was asked to transfer a patient to another hospital. Reluctantly, I accepted the assignment as this was something new to me. I proceeded on my journey but in pure ignorance. Unexpectedly my patient crashed. In this moment I was hit with the reality of how unprepared I was for the trip.
Negligence is when a nurse who is fully capable of caring does not care in the way a reasonably prudent nurse would, and as a result the
Caring in nursing Being in the health profession isn’t the easiest, but it shouldn’t be the hardest either. Especially in nursing when you are in charge of the patient’s pain management. Giving out the right medications at a certain time while keeping track of symptoms they might be experiencing during the day is important. Many people now a day go into nursing for the money and it should not be like that.