Safety and Legal Responsibilities of Registered Nurses - Samples

Question: Discuss about the Safety and Legal Responsibilities of Registered Nurses. Answer: In every workplace or organization, there are rules that govern the employees. These rules and regulations help them in their way of conduct within and without their work premises. In hospitals, for example, the Clinical nurses have rules and regulations that govern their code of conduct on how they should handle the patient and themselves. The nurses have the responsibility of making sure that the patients safety is monitored throughout their treatment. The patients on the other hand also have a responsibility of making sure that they take care of themselves at the medical facilities. The nurses should be accountable and responsible for their actions, decisions, and evaluations of their own practice (Lachman, 2012). Most patients have complained about how the nurses handle them at the medical facilities and there are several related issues arising on the mismanagement of patients at the facilities and this put their lives at risk as far as safety is concerned. It is the responsibili ty of clinical officers to make sure that their patients feel safe first by offering psychological, emotional and even physical support before any kind of treatment. Both the patient and the nurses safety is important in the medical facilities for a better and conducive environment for the nurse to perform her duties diligently and for the patient to receive quality medical attention. It is also a nurses legal responsibility to be responsible for his or her own acts. The nurses should make sure that the patients get right diagnosis for their illness or injuries. Misdiagnosis and failure to the diagnosis of an illness or injury are one of the problems experienced by patients yet it is a legal responsibility of the nurses (Tilse Wilson, 2013). Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose a patient can lead to various complications that may need another diagnosis, this mostly happens either because of improper Medicare, delayed treatment or no absolute treatment. This can also happen due of lack of communication or poor communication between the nurse and the patient (Trinkoff et al., 2008). It is important that the nurse gets adequate information from the patient before any diagnosis is done and if the nurse is not conversant with the symptoms it is good to her to consult the doctor in charge for further assessment. The medical facilities should make sure that they have all the required medications and the employed nurses should be willing and well trained to do their jobs. The patients often depend on the nurses and the doctors for better treatment and diagnosis, and in such event, the patients do not feel safe enough to get treatment and medication again from the same nurse or even medical facility (Lim, Bogossian Ahern, 2010). To have an environment where both the patient and the nurse feel safe, both the patient and the nurse need to take responsibilities, for the patients they need to make sure that they feel safe and get quality treatment and medication at the facilities and the nurses, on the other hand, need to feel safe at their medical facilities and even wit h their patients to make sure that both of them work in a safe environment for better and quality services. References Lachman, V. D. (2012). Applying the ethics of care to your nursing practice.Medsurg Nursing,21(2), 112. Lim, J., Bogossian, F., Ahern, K. (2010). Stress and coping in Australian nurses: a systematic review. InternationalNursing Review, 57(1), 22-31. doi:10.1111/j.1466-7657.2009 Tilse, C., Wilson, J. (2013). Recognizing and responding to financial abuse in residential aged care. The Journal of Adult Protection, 15(3), 141-152. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JAP- 11-2012-0025 Trinkoff, A. M.,Geiger-Brown, J. M., Caruso, C. C., Lipscomb, J. A., Johantgen, M. Nelson, A. L., ... Selby, V. L. (2008). Personal safety for nurses. In R. G. Hughes (Ed.)., Patient Safety and Quality: an Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses (pp. 1-36). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US).