But nothing compares to the lecture we had on Monday. This particular professor was teaching us about legal issues in nursing-- how incredibly important it is to document carefully because nurses are increasingly being sued.
She covered negligence, gross negligence, malpractice. She delved into assault and battery. She touched on failure to report abuse. And throughout the 3 hours, she peppered her lecture with newspaper clippings that detailed lawsuits against nurses and hospitals. She must have told approximately 50 stories, all of which ended with the phrase, "...and then the patient died" or "... and she bled to death in 20 minutes" or "...and the mother survived but the baby died instantly" or "... and he died later from complications of the punctured lung." By the end of the class, we were TERRIFIED.
She also mentioned that, as student nurses, we are potential candidates for lawsuit. Even though our clinical instructors and our school and our preceptors at the hospitals are overseeing and educating us, we are ultimately responsible for our actions. We need to be extremely careful and detail oriented and constantly check and recheck ourselves. And we can't do anything in the hospital that we haven't learned in skills lab or from our clinical instructors. I've been lucky-- most of the nurses I explain this to have been receptive but it can get difficult when you're working with a nurse who you are supposed to be assisting and now all of a sudden you say you can't do something and you look sort of incompetent or unhelpful. Especially when they kind of pressure you to do it anyway.
Our professor gave us good advice, though. She said that when someone tells us to do something we're not comfortable with or trained to do by saying "Oh just do it. Don't worry about it, I'm right here and I'll take the responsibility," then still don't do it, because it's as if they are saying "Oh come on, just let me put it in for a second. I won't come."
I think that may be the best analogy I have ever heard.
