Scenario 2:Administration of patient medications in the hosptial setting: Imagin

Question

Scenario 2:Administration of patient medications in the hosptial setting: Imagine you are a new graduate nurse working nights on a busy medical unit. You just received a new patient who needs to be admitted to your unit, and you just finished medicating as patient with a nacrotic injection with a dose greater than ordered. Clearly understanding medication errors may lead to patient injury and even deathm explain why a clinician may choose to not report the incident. Write 150 response for the ethical scenario.

Explanation / Answer

Medication error is any preventable human error by healthcare professionals that might cause patient harm or inappropriate medication to the patients. Medication error can affect both the patient’s life as well as the clinician’s career and life.

Nurses might be afraid of the negative consequences of reporting medication errors – their jobs might be at risk, they might be labeled as unfit for their jobs, lowered confidence and feeling of guilt.

Sometimes, it might be that the nurses are unable to detect the medication error and couldn’t report it.

They might also be confident that slight difference in medication doesn’t do any harm to the patients and decide not to report it as the error will not be found.

In the given case, the error is due to over dosage of narcotic drug and it is considered as a dangerous mistake which can be detected easily. Ideally, nurses should be socially responsible to come forward and report such errors so that immediate corrective action can be taken based on the patient’s condition.

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