A nurse under fire deserves our support whenever possible. But is it always possible, and would you feel like a Benedict Arnold if you testified against another nurse’s care?
Think of it this way: when a person is harmed by negligence, you are not attacking another nurse; you are defending a patient.
Consider this recent case: An elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease was in hospice and had been minimally responsive for several months. But then her physician decreased her sedation and she began talking with family, responding to her environment, and eating solid food. Her children were delighted with this gift of quality time and even her physician documented the marked change in her behavior. He did not connect the dots that he had overmedicated her (but that is another issue).
One night, a float nurse placed a high dose fentanyl patch on this lady’s chest, who had no order for any type of narcotic and no complaints of pain. Exactly how did that happen?
- Why did the nurse not look for an old patch before placing a new one?
- On whose chart did she document having applied the patch?
- What was the effect on the patient who missed her rightful dose?
- What is this nurse’s work history?
- Did the facility report this event to the State Board of Nursing or Medicare?
- Could this have been an attempted mercy killing?
- Did this act result in permanent damages?
The patch was applied at 9am. At 9:45pm the patient was noted to have fluid-filled lungs and was given atropine, but the patch was not found for another 13 hours. By then it was too late to save her.
I ask you, who monitors pulmonary congestion for 25 hours and doesn’t see a patient’s chest while listening to lungs? If any nurse had looked, she would have found the patch. This case had many unacceptable breaches in care, resulting in death 70 hours after the patch was applied.
What do you think? Is this a family complaint you could get behind? Do you think the nurse’s action resulted in damages that ended in her premature death?
Remember, your job would not be to opine on causation, but to simply and objectively state your understanding of the standard of care in medication administration. Tell the attorney/jury what would constitute good care, and why failure to do so constituted negligence.
You can do that.
legalnurseadams 
