Nursing Assignment | Assessment | 1

Running head: NURSING 1
Nursing Assignment
Student Name
Institution

NURSING 2
Introduction
Ethical and legal principles enable patients to receive quality care from nursing
practitioners. Clinical practice requires an understanding of these ethical and legal issues or
principles to ensure that each course of action is within professional boundaries. In this essay, the
nurseis faced with a challenge where post-operative patient register deviation from normal body
limits prompting immediate action. The nurse responded by some actions that can be compared
to the ethical and legal principles. A proper examination of ethical concepts shows some ethical
principle conflicting with each other. Various ethical principles, code of conduct and RN
standards of practice are analyzed for their application in the situation. Therefore, the following
essay analyses a case study based on the ethical and legal principles applied in nursing practice.
Course of action
Mavis having undergone surgical operations needed proper and close management to
prevent any complication that may endanger her life. There are some actions that would have
helped the patient to stay within the normal limit without any discomfort.
General course of actions
Firstly, a medical assessment is needed to assess the possibility of any adverse medical
outcome that may have occurred on Mavis. The behaviors of Mavis show some irritation and
mental disturbance that require assessment. Mental assessment is needed to establish where the
problem may be. In addition, the conduct of Mavis that involves removing wound dressing
means there some mental problems that the patient is undergoing. Moreover, the medical

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assessment was also needed for ascertaining any medical error that may have occurred in the
course of post-operation medication (King, 2017).
Secondly, addressing the hygiene of Mavis is another course of action as the patient is
dirty from feces. Patients who have undergone surgical operations require high hygiene to avoid
infections and addressing the hygiene of Mavis is a primary course of action. Attending to
hygiene could help prevent any infection from germs and the caregiver needed to call for support
from other caregivers present to help address the issue of Mavis (Mashayekhi, Madani & Saeedi,
2015).
Thirdly, mandatory reporting is another action that the nurse needed to do immediately as
the legal requirement dictates that the caregiver needs to report on the progress of the client
especially where there are high care needs as in the case of Mavis. Reporting the issue to the unit
manager could help involve other caregivers to assist the client, Mavis. The nurse needed to
report immediately so that the medical assessment is done to help care for the patient (Östman,
Näsman, Eriksson & Nyström, 2019).
Fourthly, Assessment of the adverse event and reporting is another course of action that
the nurse needed to conduct immediately. The behavior of the patient shows the possibility of an
adverse event occurring within the post-operation time that needed assessment. Emergency
assessment is, therefore, needed to ascertain where the problem of the stool is. Moreover, the RN
standard of practice 4.1 requires a nurse to conduct a comprehensive assessment that is holistic
and culturally appropriate. This is also supported by standard 4.2 that indicate the need for the
assessment using various techniques available (Manookian, Cheraghi & Nasrabadi, 2014).

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Postoperative actions
Surgical operations may be followed with some complications that if not properly
managed the condition may worsen or adverse events may result. Post-operation signs of
discomfort decrease blood pressure and urine retention needed immediate assessment and
address of those complications. First, the assessment was needed for assessing the reason for
passing urine for nine hours. Draining urine using a catheter was needed immediately to help the
patient. This was not the case and the caregivers failed to assess the urine retention complication
on Mavis (Mousavi, Agharahimi & Daryabeigi, 2014).
Second, shock assessment was also needed to determine the reason for low blood
pressure that had dropped at the time of the case. Immediate medication or blood pressure
interventions were needed immediately to help raise the blood pressure to normal range. The
condition may worsen if immediate action is not taken as was the case of Mavis. The nurse
needed to have undertaken immediate medical action to restore the normal blood pressure of the
patient (Shahriari, Mohammadi, Abbaszadeh & Bahrami, 2013).
Third, assessment and treatment of postoperative fever that may have cause the
temperature to be 38 °C. Many different complications may lead to postoperative fever and
assessing this fever could have reduced the confusion that was witnessed in patients. Caregivers,
therefore, failed to assess the patient to establish a fever for faster treatment before it is late. The
nurse assessed the patient when the condition had started deviating from the normal limit
(Schick-Makaroff & Storch, 2019).
Ethical principles