Professional Accountability in Nursing: A Case Study

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1NURSING
Introduction:
Professional accountability is an important professional behaviour needed by registered
nurse to promote safety of patient. Professional accountability means to be accountable for one’s
activities by explaining the reasons for them and supplying normative grounds to ensure the
action is justified. This professional behaviour is needed by registered nurse to critically review
nursing actions and take critical steps to promote safety of patient (Aveling, Parker and Dixon‐
Woods 2016). Any breach in professional conduct is associated with strict consequence and even
cancellation of the registration of registered nurse. This essay looks into a case where a
registered nurse, Vicki Tripodis was suspended from her registration for six months because of
unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct. The essay discusses about the
key actions taken by that resulted in adverse outcomes for patient and the impact of several
factors behind contributing to the adverse outcome for patient. The essay gives discussion
regarding insight relevant action that the registered nurses should have taken to prevent the
adverse outcome.
Brief synopsis/overview:
Vicki Tripodis, a registered nurse was suspended from registered practice for six months
following the complaint from the Health Care Complaints Commission. The event that led to this
legal action was that while working as a nurse in the Medical Subacute Unit at the Correctional
Complex on the night shift of 5 February 2015, Vicki Tripodis was providing care to patient A
who had recently undergone a total laryngectomy. She failed to perform full set of observation
during her shift and did not undertake two hourly visual observation of the patient. Her failure to
make appropriate clinical record and no supervision during self-administration of the nebulised

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saline resulted in death of patient A because of pulmonary embolism (Health Care Complaints
Commission, 2018).. The following link gives full details about the case:
http://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/Publications/Media-releases/2018/RN-Vicki-Tripodis---
Suspension-and-reprimand-for-Professional-Misconduct
Actions/omission contributing to adverse outcome for the patient:
According to the Health Care complaints Commission, Vicki Tripodis was involved in
five omissions that led adverse outcome for patient A. Firstly, Vicki failed to perform full set of
observation during her shift. Patient A had a history of lower limb amputation and laryngeal
cancer and since the patient has recently undergone a laryngectomy, it was necessary for nurse to
conduct full set of observation to identify any adverse effect of the surgery on vital signs of
patient. She failed to perform observation related changes in blood pressure, temperature,
respiration and oxygen concentration. Monitoring vital sign is a crucial aspect of nursing care as
acts as an important indicator of patient’s clinical condition. Conducting full set of observation
helps to detect harm to patient leading to deterioration of patient condition (Johnson, Mueller &
Winkelman, 2017). According to the standard 4 of the registered nurse for practice by Nursing
and Midwifery Board of Australia (2016), registered nurse have the responsibility to conduct
comprehensive and systematic assessment and use the collected data to inform practice.
However, Vicki’s negligence to complete the full vital sign observation resulted in delay in
identification of deterioration in patient and taking appropriate response to promote safety of
patient.
The second omission by Vicki Tripodis was that she failed to undertake two undertake
two hourly observation of patient A’s including changes in breathing and airway status of patient