NURSING REFLECTION Assignment

Running head: NURSING REFLECTION
437NURSING REFLECTION
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

NURSING REFLECTION1
Introduction:
Being front line health professionals, Nurses have a duty of care towards all of their patients who
require medical assistance (Watson, 2015). The duty of care is considered as the obligations
placed on health professionals for acting towards patients according to a certain standard.
Wrong administration of medication is one of the major contributors of morbidity in Australia
where more than 1 million individuals experience it every day (Ingham-Broomfield, 2017). The
case study represents breaching of duty of care of a nurse while she crushed up three different
oral tablets and put them into IV-drip of the patient. In order to provide safe and responsive care
to the patients, the health professionals cannot be termed as negligent if the treatment of a patient
requires the assistance or opinion of other health professionals from the same field. Thus, the
assignment intended to discuss potential harm of medical negligence and impact of same on
patients along with NMBA Standard and ACSQHC standards in the following paragraphs.
Description of the incident:
The medical malpractice is a common incident in the clinical setting which not affect the nursing
practice but also impacts the quality of life of the patient (aihw.gov.au 2018). Hence, this paper
will focus on one such medical malpractice, medical negligence. The term medical negligence is
referred to the incidents where healthcare professionals failed to provide the care up to the
standard of care despite the possession of skills of an expert which further resulted in in
breaching of duty of care (Small et al., 2016). In this case study, Mavis Lopez, the accused
individual was subjected to charges of manslaughter on the ground of the medical negligence of
her patient. (Bibby, 2019). The case study provided an insight into the fact that the nurse already
reported that the patient had an extensive medical history such as high blood pressure and severe
heart disease and had difficulty in swallowing. For administrating medication, Lopez crushed

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three medications, mixed with saline and injected it in 100ml intravenous drip of the patient. The
medicines were administrated without any second opinion of any senior nurse or the presence of
a senior nurse.
Consequence:
The immediate consequence of medical negligence was immediate death of the patient.
According to NMBA code of conduct nursing practice principle four: the core values of the
nurses provide safe, honest and compassionate care to the patients without causing possible harm
to the patient (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au., 2019). While Lopez exhibited empathy towards
the patient and for minimizing the suffering of the patient, she administrated intravenous
medication, she experienced ethical conflicts in between beneficence and non-maleficence.
According to NMBA standard 6, it is the responsibility of a nurse to provide safe and responsible
care by addressing medical errors (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. 2019). The accused
individual experienced ethical conflicts and failed to balance between possible risk and benefits.
On the other hand, this incident highlighted the gap in delivery of the care. Vrbnjak et al.
(2016), highlighted that the medication errors in the clinical field are solely due to the medical
negligence in absence proper guiding protocol. Hence, it is the legal obligation of nurses to
provide safe and responsive care to the patients by addressing the medication error. While
she was not found guilty as patient was already in critical condition, the negligence cannot be
ignored.
Nursing action and description:
According to NMBA standard 7, nurses are required to monitor the progress of the
patient for detecting adverse changes in the patient and preventing sudden death in the clinical