Nursing Assignment: Medication Administration and Patient Safety

This nursing assignment presents a scenario involving a new nurse facing a dilemma in medication administration. The assignment focuses on a situation where a preceptor suggests shortcuts, potentially compromising patient safety. The student is tasked with analyzing the situation, identifying the ethical and practical implications of the preceptor's actions, and explaining the correct course of action. The assignment highlights the importance of adhering to proper protocols, advocating for the patient, and avoiding shortcuts that could lead to medication errors. The student correctly identifies the need to administer medications at the bedside and emphasizes the importance of patient safety and ethical decision-making in nursing practice, referencing relevant literature to support the arguments.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT 1
Nursing Assignment
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

NURSING ASSIGNMENT 2
Nursing Assignment
Scenario
In your continued struggle to adapt to your new job as a precepting nurse, you feel
understaffed in your fifth week of training. You take an extra patient making your day very busy.
The patient you are assigned has been in the facility for four months without any improvements.
He develops complications daily. He frustrates the staff and is specific on how he should take
medication and does not comply at times. Your preceptor wants to take short cuts to get it done.
She gives him all the drugs and tells him, "we have a busy morning, and we don't have time to do
that, here are all your medications. You can take them separately, and we will check back after
the break to make sure you took them all". It is your fifth day in training, and you know it is bad.
First option – you say, "I will separate them into med cups and wait for you to take them
individually so we don't leave the bedside." The preceptor agrees and leaves.
The second option – leave the room with the preceptor and later realize all medications
were not taken.
Hypothesis- stay with the patient as he takes the medication so that he takes them. Take
BP before drug administration.
The quick way is bad practice in medicine. It increases medical errors (Norman et al.,
2017). There was a conflict about whether to administer medication or not. Leaving the
medication on the bedside and not seeing them take medicine is a common practice in nursing
(Breckenridge et al., 2017). However, you followed the right protocol and ensured the patient
received all medications. This is an appropriate intervention.

NURSING ASSIGNMENT 3
Speak as a new nurse, and show you know what is wrong vs. right. Shortcuts are not
good practice and may end up bad for you. The nurse spoke and became an excellent advocate
for the patient.

NURSING ASSIGNMENT 4
References
Breckenridge, A., Aronson, J. K., Blaschke, T. F., Hartman, D., Peck, C. C., & Vrijens, B.
(2017). Poor medication adherence in clinical trials: consequences and solutions. Nature
Reviews Drug Discovery, 16(3), 149.
Norman, G. R., Monteiro, S. D., Sherbino, J., Ilgen, J. S., Schmidt, H. G., & Mamede, S. (2017).
The causes of errors in clinical reasoning: cognitive biases, knowledge deficits, and dual
process thinking. Academic Medicine, 92(1), 23-30.