Legal Risks and Nursing

Paper Summary:

This paper points out that one of the reasons for the shortage may be nurses leaving the profession for various reasons, including the liability that working as a nurse creates. The author stresses if a patient is treated by a nurse and if that patient suffers illness, injury or death, which can be related back to the treatment given by that nurse, the nurse may indeed be held liable; there is a liability by the very virtue of the job itself. The author relates that developing a pattern of following procedure and protocol every time, remaining constantly educated, and reporting anything that one feels is unwarranted or unethical may offer some form of protection when it comes to nurses facing legal liability in the daily course of their jobs.

From the Paper:

"One such case was a labor and delivery nurse who failed to recognize signs of PIH in a woman who arrived at the hospital in labor. The patient complained of a headache and had a family history of PIH but was kept waiting for several hours before being admitted by the nurses to the floor. To further complicate the situation the nurses, who were supposed to perform a complete evaluation every three hours, got busy and put it off until the woman was in a room for 14 hours without being examined. Her bp had been documented at 181/100 before she was admitted to the floor and still the nurses ignored her in the labor and deliver area(Tammelleo, 2001). She ended up with an emergency C-section due to the negligent care and monitoring by the nurses. She formed blood clots in her lungs and ended up in a coma in ICU."

More papers on Legal Risks and Nursing:

• Term Paper # 116845 : "Nursing Malpractice"
• Research Paper # 93190 : "Nurses and Substance Abuse"
• Research Paper # 145591 : "Elder Abuse and the Advanced Practice Nurse"

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