Nursing Code Of Ethics In Nursing

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Every Wednesday I was assigned a patient to attend to by a specific nurse who was also my supervisor in a hospital setting. My instructor ensured that this nurse followed my progress in respect to the way I was to handle the patient through written report. While taking care of the patient, I recorded various changes, he/she indicates towards recovery. I reported these changes to the nurse. While participating in this activity, I was expected to follow the strict guidelines by the instructor and nurse; as required by the rules and regulations, and code of conduct in nursing. The nurse I was assigned to seemed a little intimidating in terms of her strictness when dealing with a student. This made me strive to avoid mistakes by documenting on time, and restoring the confidence of the patient to my ability. My key issue is that sometimes, the nurse would go with me to the patient and this heightened my anxiety. This led to jeopardizing the client’s safety, in this event; I forgot to lower the patient’s bed back to the appropriate height. The issue was a very serious one because it is clearly stipulated in the nursing code of ethics that the nurse must always make the patient feel safe and ensure the patient’s safety by doing things like lowering and raising the bed height as is required. In my case, the bed height had been temporarily raised by the nurse and I was expected to lower it back to its original height. I therefore potentially and unconsciously compromised the safety and comfort of the patient by leaving the bed high. I constantly reported to her concerning the condition of the patient in close time intervals across the day. On this day, a patient of mine had an IV site concern. The nurse assigned me to make some adjustme... ... middle of paper ... ...es need to be taught awareness skills, and given enough training to sharpen, and maintain them .Instructors should be firm but fair. This means they should be ready to correct their student’s mistakes without necessarily coming off as overbearing and this was demonstrated by the nurse. Student nurses must interact more with their patients by listening and trying to understand them. Although the patient might not know what’s best for them, they may have an idea of what is going on and might help the nurses understand issues better. Everybody makes mistakes, but it is always good to learn from them. In professions like nursing which combines pressure and tight schedules, it is important for nurses to stay sharp at all times. However, focus is easy to maintain if we adopt a problem-solving mentality and a positive attitude (Tucker, 2000). Only then can we go far.

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