In the June, 2002 article entitled “Nurses Not Acting As Patient’s Advocate: Substantial Verdict Entered Against hospital” from the Legal Eye Newsletter For The Nursing Profession, the case of a 17 year old who was admitted to the emergency room of an unnamed hospital who was basically misdiagnosed after a motorcycle accident was discussed in terms of the repercussions of then assigned nurse’s actions upon the patient and the hospital. The patient was admitted complaining of lack of feeling in the left knee and numbness in the corresponding foot. That alone should have been a red flag regarding a serious problem with the patient. However, even after failing to find the pulse in the same leg using palpation and a portable sound device, the nurse’s simply shrugged off the problem, took extensive notes, referred the case to the ER doctor, and then sent the patient on home even though there was no actual diagnosis made.
I got irritated by the nurse’s attitude towards the patient and her work because all the signs pointing to a serious health crisis existed, and there was a medical staff hierarchy in place to help resolve the patient situation and yet she chose to do nothing. It was almost as if the nurse completely forgot about the hospital policies and training in favor of accomplishing a task as quickly, although not efficiently possible.
Apparently, hospitals do have many regulations in place in order to insure that patients who come in will get the proper medical care that they deserve. These regulations are in place in order to help the hospital avoid any malpractice suits. Which is why I find it mind boggling that all the safety features failed the patient in this instance.
The final outcome of the situation got me to thinking though. How would I have reacted had I been the nurse on duty at the time of the accident? What if I was the person who failed to find a pulse? Would I also have just taken extensive notes and shrugged off the patient complaints? Or would I have tried to do something more for the patient?
Placing myself in the nurse’s shoes, I know that I would have done a lot more than just take extensive notes in order to cover my butt. Admittedly, the note taking was an important part of the job. However, note taking also serves as an impromptu case analysis for the nurses and physicians on the floor. In the event that nobody understood the case, as what happened to this patient, I would have gone through the protocol drill. I will do that because as a nurse, my primary directive is to help ease a patient’s pain and help save his life.
The patient has no idea about what is going on within his system and relied on the medical professionals to find the problem and fix it. Something that these health professionals failed to do for some reason or another. In the end, they had no excuse for their lack of analytical skills and failure to follow protocol. It is my opinion that everyone of the health professionals involved in this case should have lost their licenses to practice in order to protect other trusting and unsuspecting people who come to the E.R. in need of immediate medical attention. There can never be any acceptable excuse for people involved in such obvious gross negligence cases.
Bibliography
Nurses Not Acting As Patient’s Advocate: Substantial Verdict Entered Against Hospital. Web.