With the increased technological advancements and medical practices, making decisions by nurses have become challenging, especially where laws have not been implemented for the new practices and procedures. Nevertheless, nurses, just like other healthcare professionals, ought to make decisions ethically. As such, their practice should be in line with the federal and state statutes (Tingle, & Cribb, 2013). The act of making decisions by the nurses; therefore, calls for caution to avoid being at risk of legal liability. Nurses are to be held legally liable if they are involved with acts of malpractice and negligence. The paper will present an analysis of two case studies where nurses failed to conduct themselves according to the legal and ethical requirements.
In the first case study, the patient died of internal bleeding following the blood transfusion (Guido, 2014). To ensure that patients are given continued care, nurses should keep good medical records of these patients. Again, nurses are supposed to take note of the prescribed drugs, examination findings, as well as any new symptoms that the patient may exhibit to ensure that they keep track of the patient’s progress.
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In this case, the nurse did not record the breathing complications that the patient developed after the blood transfusion (Guido, 2014). If only she could have recorded the information, other healthcare professionals would be in a position to stop the internal bleeding that led to the patient’s death (Lillyman, & Merrix, 2014).
In the nursing profession, failure or delay in offering medical care by nurses is termed as negligence. Again, a nurse is referred to as negligent if he/she fails to offer medical care to a patient the way another reasonable nurse in the same position would have done. Some of the most common forms of injuries linked to negligence in nursing include allowing an existing medical condition to worsen, nerve damage due to surgery, and adverse reactions to medication.
In this case scenario, the nursing staff depicted negligence in the care of this patient. Additionally, it was the duty of that particular nurse to key in the progress notes on the system of the hospital after taking notes the previous day. The nurse can also be termed as negligent because she did not record the critical signs between the time when the patient was experiencing breathing complications and time of death.
The nurse did not also call any doctor after the wife of the patient informed her about the symptoms of the patient. Instead, she tried to console her that nothing was wrong with the patient, making the situation look like it did not need quick medical attention.
If I was a nurse, I could have handled the situation according to the ethical and legal requirements of the nursing profession by taking notes of the progress of the patient. Moreover, after receiving information from the patient’s wife, I could have told the surgeon so that the patient could be assessed and given medication to stop the ‘heavy’ breathing that led to his death (Lillyman, & Merrix, 2014).
As a judge, in this case, I would hold the nurse responsible for causing indirect loss of the patient due to her negligence and malpractice and even lying to the court that she had kept medical records of the patient when he portrayed vital signs (Ketefian, 2000).
After going through the sample professional liability insurance policy, I located all the provisions listed. When purchasing my liability coverage, I would go for this as it has all provisions necessary because I can count on insurance if a lawsuit is filed against me. Again, this policy would be suitable for me because I would cut on costs that I may incur to defend my self in court if I am sued.
In the second case study, the nurse fails to agree with the idea of turning on the conditioner because of a sudden heat wave leading to four deaths of the home’s residents (Guido, 2014). To determine whether the insurance company is supposed to pay such a claim, I would consider insurance policy provisions like covered injuries.
The insurance should pay if the injuries were caused by professional judgment. Therefore, the limits of liability would be that all the claims arising from the same rendering of or lack of rendering the same professional services and judgments shall be considered a single claim for the purposes of this insurance.
Terming the issue at hand in this case study as a professional judgment by the nursing home insurance is right because according to the nurse there was no need of turning on the air conditioner because of an unexpected heat wave (Guido, 2014). If the nurse had insurance coverage, then the insurance company of the nursing home should pay the judgment given by the court.
To some extent, the physician in this case scenario portrayed negligence as she ought to agree with the idea of turning on the air conditioner to minimize the heat that the residents were experiencing thus lives could not have been lost. Contrastingly, I feel it is correct to say that it was the primary duty of the nurse to ensure that the residents of that home were comfortable; therefore, she ought to have turned on the air conditioner.
In conclusion, it is both the legal and ethical obligation of the nurses to ensure that they take good care of the patient and act reasonably to ensure that no injuries are caused by their negligence and malpractice (Peirce, & Smith, 2013). Again, these ethical and legal considerations require patients to keep medical records of their patients either handwritten or the electronic ones since technology has advanced.
As such, these records, are supposed to help other healthcare professionals follow up on the progress of the patients as well as determining the medications they may need (Lillyman, & Merrix, 2014). Therefore, failure to keep notes of the patient’s vital signs may prompt relatives of a patient to file a lawsuit against the nurse on duty if the malpractice led to serious injuries (Lillyman, & Merrix, 2014).
Additionally, nurses should consider having individual insurance coverage as they may find themselves on the wrong side of the law due to errors in their profession. These insurance policies are important especially if they have all provisions because they aid in cutting costs for defending oneself in the court of law when faced with a trial as the financial costs may be strenuous due to the low wages (Griffith, & Tengnah, 2010).
Lastly, in both case scenarios discussed above, the nurses in question did not adhere to the ethical and legal requirements that compel them to work towards offering proper health care to the patients. Therefore, the court ought to have given judgment according to the federal and state statute for malpractice and neglecting their patients. In the first case, the nurse even went ahead to lie to the court that she had recorded information about the patient before he died.
References
Griffith, R., & Tengnah, C. (2010). Law and Professional Issues in Nursing . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Guido, G. W. (2014). Legal and ethical issues in nursing (6 th ed.). Upper Saddle River, Nj: Prentice Hall, (Chapters 9 and 10).
Ketefian, S. (2000). Legal and ethical issues: Ethical considerations in international nursing. Journal of Professional Nursing , 16 (5), 257. doi:10.1053/jpnu.2000.9454
Lillyman, S., & Merrix, P. (2014). Nursing & Health Survival Guide: Record Keeping . London, England: Routledge.
Peirce, A. G., & Smith, J. A. (2013). Ethical and Legal Issues for Doctoral Nursing Students: A Textbook for Students and Reference for Nurse Leaders . DEStech Publications.
Tingle, J., & Cribb, A. (2013). Nursing Law and Ethics . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
