Critical Learning in Nursing: Standards of Care, Delegation, and More

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of critical learning in nursing, focusing on five major areas: standards of care, delegation, liability, negligence, and malpractice. For each area, the author describes two key items learned – knowledge and skills – and explains how this learning will relate to their future nursing practice. The essay highlights the importance of understanding nursing standards for competency, the proper delegation of duties for efficiency and patient safety, awareness of liability causes to prevent errors, and the elements of negligence and malpractice to ensure patient safety and adherence to professional standards. The author emphasizes that gaining knowledge and skills in these areas is crucial for providing safe and effective care, ultimately shaping their professional nursing career. Desklib provides access to more solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: CRITICAL LEARNING 1
Critical Learning
Name
Institution

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Critical Learning
Standards of Care
The standards of care in nursing relate to the professional nursing activities that a nurse must
demonstrate through their nursing practice. Knowledge and skills are two important items in
standards of care. Knowledge regarding standards of care enables the nurse to attain the
necessary competency levels for practice (Douglas et al., 2011). This may help in the initiation of
changes in future nursing practice if the desired outcomes concerning patient care and safety are
not achieved. Skills, on the other hand, are important for the performance of unique and
specialized roles in the nursing practice. I can use specialized skills to respond to tricky
situations in the future by not having to worry about what another nurse would have done.
Delegation
Delegation in nursing can be described as the process by which a qualified health practitioner
with the authority to perform a particular task transfers the said task to an unauthorized
individual. Knowledge of delegation enables a nurse to understand the categories of nurses that
are allowed to delegate. Additionally, the nurse may understand the regulation that prohibits sub-
delegation and delegation of specific controlled acts (Russell, 2012). Skills on delegation, on the
other hand, enable a nurse to appropriately delegate duties to the most suitable nursing assistants.
Delegation may help improve efficiency and patient safety in my future practice.
Liability
Liability may be used to mean that a registered nurse with legal and professional responsibilities
to perform a particular duty, has failed to uphold these responsibilities. The rising shortage of

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nurses has placed additional burdens on the available nurses thus increasing the margin of error.
Adequate knowledge regarding this item is important in understanding the causes of liability
such as doing something that you should not have done or failing to do something that you
should have done (Grove, Burns & Gray, 2012). Sometimes it can be completely unintentional.
The skills, however, help an individual in identifying the areas of liability such as discharge,
delegation, and documenting along others which could be very useful in my future practice.
Negligence
Negligence in nursing is the failure of the nurse to take reasonable measures to ensure patient
safety and prevent injury or loss of life. A registered nurse can be found to have exercised
negligence if he/she owed a duty of care to the patient if he/she breached that particular duty of
care, and if that breach led to injury, harm or loss of life (Masters, 2015). Learning about
negligence gives me the knowledge about elements of negligence and the skills required to avoid
negligence in practice. This is important to my future nursing practice because it ensures that I
perform my duties with extreme care to prevent a breach of a duty of care and enhance patient
safety.
Malpractice
A nurse who is found to have acted negligently is said to have committed malpractice. This
means that the said nurse failed in upholding the required professional and legal standards.
Learning about malpractice gives one the knowledge to know the factors that cause it including
errors in medication, errors in documentation, failure to appropriately monitor a patient, and
errors in routine procedures among others (Masters, 2015). Skills regarding malpractice will help

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me understand the most appropriate way of handling patients to avoid cases of malpractice such
is an incorrect prescription of drugs.

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References
Douglas, M. K., Pierce, J. U., Rosenkoetter, M., Pacquiao, D., Callister, L. C., Hattar-Pollara,
M., ... & Purnell, L. (2011). Standards of practice for culturally competent nursing care:
2011 update. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 22(4), 317-333.
Grove, S. K., Burns, N., & Gray, J. (2012). The practice of nursing research: Appraisal,
synthesis, and generation of evidence. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Masters, K. (2015). Role development in professional nursing practice. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Russell, K. A. (2012). Nurse practice acts guide and govern nursing practice. Journal of Nursing
Regulation, 3(3), 36-42.