Nurses are people, human beings that even though are they are held to a much higher standard they are the same as everyone else. There is one exception, when a nurse makes a mistake it can cost more than ever imagined. Nurses can become addicted to drugs just like anyone else, nurses are more likely than the average person to become addicted to drugs and or alcohol because of the stress of their jobs. According to Howlett and Hill “Between 2% and 18% of nurses become chemically dependent on alcohol and /or other drugs” (page 65). That is just what transpired at the Board of Nursing’s disciplinary hearings of the two female nurses that were present for their hearings. Of the nine people that were scheduled for hearings on November 19, 2015, …show more content…
was also an RN, who was there on a probation violation as well. Her original charge was a failed drug test upon hire for a traveling nurse position. The drug test was positive for marijuana and tramadol to which the nurse had no prescription or medical reason have these drugs in her system. She was placed on five years of probation based on the Nurse Practice Act section 335.066. Denial, revocation, or suspension of license, grounds for, civil immunity for providing information--complaint procedures “(15) Violation of the drug laws or rules and regulations of this state, any other state or the federal government;” This particular RN was very forth coming about her substance abuse addiction. She explained that she originally had an alcohol abuse problem and that she had started smoking marijuana to try and stop drinking. This nurse old a license in both Kansas and Missouri. According to her the Kansas BON only required her to call in five days a week, Monday through Friday and the Missouri BON requires seven day a week call ins. She was accused of violating the call in portion of her probation agreement and having a positive drug test of default due to creatinine levels being below
I agree with you that the nurses violated provision 9 of the nursing code of ethics. Nurses have an obligation to themselves, their whole team and to the patients to express their values. Communication is key in a hospital, so everyone knows what is correct and what isn’t within the workplace. In order to have a productive, ethical, positive environment. These values that should be promoted affect everyone in the hospital, especially the patients, and can have a negative outcome if those values are not lived out. Nurses have to frequently communicate and reaffirm the values they are supposed follow frequently so when a difficult situation comes along that may challenge their beliefs they will remain strong and their values will not falter.
The Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) enables nurses to practice in other states besides the one in which they reside. There are currently 24 states included in the NLC, which includes Tennessee and neighboring Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Eligibility for a multistate license requires that a nurse legally reside in a compact state (National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2014). There are no additional applications required to apply for a compact license. Only one multistate license can be active at a time. Therefore when issued a compact license, any previously active compact licenses are made inactive. Also it is important to note that nurses are required to practice according to the nurse practice act of the state for which they are actually practicing in rather than their primary state of residence. Therefore a nurse could be subject to disciplinary action in the states of practice. The nurse’s home state license is recognized in all compact states unless the nurse is under disciplinary action or restriction. With the compact licensure in place, the question is then raised to whether there is an increased risk for disciplinary actions in compact states opposed to non-compact states.
Substance abuse among health care professionals is an issue that is continually gaining more attention due to the harmful affects it can have individuals as well as the patients. Substance abuse can greatly hinder the ability to provide quality care and if left unchecked could lead to serious implications within the health care facility. There are a significant amount of nurses and health care providers that deal with substance abuse problems. At one point, it was estimated, that 2-3%, of all nurses were addicted to drugs (Trinkoff, & Storr, 1998). To encourage nurses to seek help, the Texas Peer Assistance Program for Nurses was created. This program gives employers, LVNs and RNs the ability to seek help, education, guidance, and support in dealing with substance abuse and mental health illnesses. In this paper, we will examine the ethical perspectives that these programs foster and the ethical responsibilities of the patient, nurse, and coworkers as determined by the Texas Board of Nursing and the Nurse Practice Acts.
J.P., a 58 year old female, presents to the Emergency Room on March 18th. She has a past medical history of cervical cancer, atheroembolism of the left lower extremity, fistula of the vagina, peripheral vascular disease, neuropathy, glaucoma, GERD, depression, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and sickle cell anemia. She complains of right lower extremity pain accompanied by fatigue, a decreased appetite, increased work of breathing, burning on urination, and decreased urine output for three days.
My plans after obtaining my advanced degree is to acquire licensure to practice as AGNP in the state of Texas. The Texas BON acknowledges that APN education, experiences, and competency levels vary, hence, holds individual APN accountable for knowing and practicing within their own scope of practice and competency always. The APN’s education is the grounds to their scope of practice: however, the APN can expand the scope of practice within the role and population-focus, as long as it remains within limits of the law. The Texas BON restricts the scope of practice for the APNs. The Nurse Practitioner Supervision Laws require¬¬¬¬¬ APN to work under physician supervision within seventy five mile perimeter. In addition, there is the Texas ' Nurse Practitioner Prescribing Laws which require APNs to prescribe medications under physician supervision and APNs are not allowed to prescribe schedule two drugs. All prescriptions written by the NPs must include the supervising physician 's name, address, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) number and phone number (Texas BON,
According to American Nurses Association (ANA), (2010) “the nurse promotes, advocates for and strives to protect the heath, safety and right of the patient” (p. 6). Nursing responsibilities should be acted at the highest standard and must be based on legal and ethical obligations.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) developed a foundation for which all nurses are expected to perform their basic duties in order to meet the needs of the society we serve. The ANA “has long been instrumental in the development of three foundational documents for professional nursing; its code of ethics, its scope and standards of practice, ands statement of social policy.” (ANA, 2010, p. 87) The ANA defined nursing as “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations” and used to create the scope and standards of nursing practice. (ANA, 2010, p. 1) These “outline the steps that nurses must take to meet client healthcare needs.” () The nursing process, for example, is one of the things I use daily. Other examples include communicating and collaborating with my patient, their families, and my peers, and being a lifelong learner. I continually research new diagnoses, medications, and treatments for my patients. As a nurse of ...
Substance abuse in the field of nursing has become a serious problem. Every day exposure to drugs in addition to other factors have contributed to the issue of substance abuse among nurses and the impact on patient care. Some may still be unaware of the substance abuse problem nurses struggle with, and they don't realize until they see the consequences on overall patient outcomes and work productivity. Learning to recognize the chemically impaired nurse has allowed the health care field to expand its awareness and begin to take action on this issue. “To ensure productivity, safety, and quality of care, most hospitals have instituted drug-free workplace programs...that identify prohibited behaviors and the consequences of violating the policy” (Epstein et al., 2010, p. 515). In hope of change to this issue, further action continues to be a work in progress.
Nursing professionals deal with a lot of stress in the course of their duty and this could lead to burnouts, and frustration. They absorb both positive and negative aura constantly when dealing with suffering and dying patients and their families. Due to their close proximity with patients, they stand the risk of getting blamed when situations become unpleasant. However, the most important factor to recall is that nursing is all about compassionate and non-judgmental care.
This correlates greatly with provision six which states: “The nurse facilitates improvement of the healthcare environment.” (Nurses Code of Ethics, 2015). As stated previously a nurses’ obligation is to help with creating and maintaining that balance of great virtues as well as excellence in the health care professions. If you think about it, if a nurse did have moral health ethics, would that nurse give unsafe patients and falsify a shift report change to the new nurse, so they could leave work? In addition, any nurse who witnesses such a false act by another nurse should report such an act immediately to their immediate. No nurse should ever agree or choose to work in an environment that enables unsafe practices. Not only are they putting the patients at risk they would be putting themselves at risk for physical harm or even losing their license as
About 32% of RNs worked on-call hours (either paid or unpaid). When we consider all types of overtime, 60.1% of RNs worked at least one type of overtime among mandatory, voluntary, and on-call. About 16% of nurses actually worked more than 40 hours in a typical week. Among nurse injuries, verbal abuse (56.6%) and bruises or contusions (49.7%) are the two most frequently experienced nurse injuries. In total, 79.2% of nurses experienced one of these injuries during the past month. In regards to adverse patient events, medication errors (44.5%) and patient falls (38.2%) are the most frequently reported adverse patient events by nurses. Sixty-one percent of nurses perceived that patients in their unit experienced one of these adverse events during their hospital stay (Bae,
Nurses continually strive to bring holistic, efficient, and safe care to their patients. However, if the safety and well-being of the nurses are threatened or compromised, it is difficult for nurses to work effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the position of the American Nurses Association (ANA) advocate that every nursing professional have the right to work in a healthy work environment free of abusive behavior such as bullying, hostility, lateral abuse and violence, sexual harassment, intimidation, abuse of authority and position and reprisal for speaking out against abuses (American Nurses Association, 2012).
In this career about there are approximately an average of 2600000 people employed. There is many duties in this field but the main achievement in this field is to maintain a stable and healthy life towards a patient. This is not always going to be a success one day you might have to deal with an unexpected health issue that can no longer be cured. You may pass by this situation quite frequently that doesn’t mean you’re a bad nurse.
In conclusion, nurses are overworked. They are overworked due to long twelve hours plus shifts, shortages of nurses whether they call out sick or the hospital did not hire enough nurses and even stress from the job. Being overworked is not good for anyone and with nurses, it can affect them physical, mentally and emotionally. The negative effects not only affects the nurse but can also affect their
Americans are concerned about the prevalence of drug abuse and thus the employers too. They realized that the prevalence of drug abuse among workers has a significant dangerous and bad impact on bossiness