NUR 4550 Professional Nursing Issues in Practice
NUR 4550 Professional Nursing Issues in Practice
Professional Issues in Nursing
Reflection of the Professional Issue in Nursing
As a nurse, I make judgement that would affect patient’s health every day, I am aware that I have a great duty to ensure my patient’s safety to maintain the public trust (Chitty & Black, 2011). After learning this module, it helped me acquire adequate knowledge to better manage legal and ethical issues at work. For the sake of providing a high quality of care to my patients, I must be knowledgeable in both (Croke, 2003). Nowadays, the public is aware of legal issues and organized information is available through the internet. As a result, medical litigation claims have been rapidly increasing. Most claims against nurses are due to medical negligence (Tay, 2001). I am liable for my own practice, and if I fail to act as a reasonable prudent person in certain conditions, I may be liable for medical negligence (Chitty & Black, 2011). Research shows several errors leading to nursing negligence. For instance, a nurse fails to follow standards of care, fails to use equipment in a responsible manner, fails to communicate, fails to document, fails to assess and monitor and fails to act as a patient’s advocate (Croke, 2003). In 1998, Hurwitz states in order to prove medical negligence, the patient plaintiff must prove: The defendant nurse owned the plaintiff a duty of care and breached in this duty of care by failing to provide the required reasonable standard of care. Thus this breach of duty of care caused the plaintiff damage. I would like to discuss a case encounter in my practice for example to reflect my knowledge. A 55 year old patient admitted for chest pain and on telemetry monitoring. This patient requested for shower, a nurse removed his telemetry and was ask to assist the patient during shower, but the patient insisted to shower on his own. Then the nurse left the patient alone without instructing him to call for help if he felt any discomfort. After a while, the nurse went back to check, patient was…
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