HUCL1301 Case Study: Reflective Essay on Professional Misconduct

This essay examines a case study of professional misconduct in the healthcare sector, focusing on a nurse's failure to properly document post-operative assessments and provide timely patient care. The essay highlights five specific instances of unprofessional behavior related to documentation, including neglecting to record post-operative assessments, vital signs, pain assessments, admission details, and pre-operative checklists. It then explores the impact of such misconduct on other healthcare professionals, such as physicians, health information technicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and emergency medical technicians, emphasizing how inadequate documentation can hinder accurate diagnoses, effective treatment, and patient safety. The essay concludes by stressing the importance of professional conduct and thorough documentation for all healthcare professionals to ensure effective patient care and accountability.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
Introduction
For health care professional, it is imperative to know their practice area and the boundary.
It will help in maintaining better therapeutic relationship by the nurse. However, if the nurse do
not fulfil their responsibility and fails to execute their duty, will lead to provide poor health care
and arise a question related to their survival (Maddox eta l., 2016). The main aim of the essay is
to highlight the type of the unprofessional behaviour of the nurse. The essay further explains how
such misconduct can impact the work of other professional and lead to serious health issues.
Following case study is based on professional misconduct and ways to by which it can be
developed by the nursing staffs. In the case study, the hearing tribunal has made an evaluation on
the professional misconduct against the member who has unsuccessful in documenting the post-
operative assessment and in giving efficient care to the patient in timely manner. It is the
responsibility to give effective care to the patient and document all the essential sign and
symptom and important information about the health of patient (Laschinger & Fida, 2015). The
five example of the unprofessional misconduct in relation to the documentation in the case study
have been highlighted clearly. Firstly, in care of the patient, it is important for the nurse to
evaluate the patient after the operation to lower the risk of health complication (Feo et al., 2017).
The nurse failed to document all the assessment which is done during post-operation of the
patient. Secondly, the nurse failed to document the vital sign and symptoms of the patients which
was needed to be done after the operation at q4h. Thirdly, the nurse has not documented the pain
assessment and thorough assessment of the patient who has been febrile prior to operation.
Fourthly, nurse in care of other patient, has not made a clear record of the admission, history,
vital signs assessment of IV and urostomy sites. Fifthly, in the case of patient who is about to
undergo operation, it is prime importance to document the pre-operative checklist of the patient.

2PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
The nurse has not documented the pre-operative checklist of the patient mentioning that patient
has had breakfast.
The above stated unprofessional behaviour of the nurse can affect the many professional
in the health care sector. The five professionals which are impacted by the misconduct of nurse
are first, physician, from study of Koman (2016) concluded that they face the issue in diagnosis
of illness in patients by the unprofessional conduct by nurse. They are greatly impacted in terms
of prescribing effective medication to the patients (Shapiro et al., 2017). When nurse fails to
document the vital sign and symptom of the patients, physician would not be able to diagnose the
health issue and fails to administer medication. Second, Health Information Technician are the
one who inspect the data of health information prepared by the nurse. They fail to evaluate the
authenticity of the information (Skurka et al., 2017). However, by the unprofessional conduct of
nurse who does not document and collect vital information of the patient hampers the work of
health information technician (Schooley et al., 2016). Third surgeon, are the health care
professional who are involve in conducting surgery. When the nurse show unprofessional
behaviour, misinterpretation of health status by surgeon can happen that may lead to health
complication Molina-Pariente et al., 2015). They fails to evaluate the health status of the patient
by not examining the pre-operative checklist and records of post-operative assessment of the
patient (Radford et al., 2015). Fourth, Anesthesiologists are also impacted by the unprofessional
conduct by the nurse as, they also fails in administering and calculating correct dose of
anesthesia on the basis of vital sign and pre-operative checklist (Troianos, 2017). Failure in
documenting such can lead to coma or even death of patients, thus shows irresponsibility of their
work (Vinson & Wang, 2015).

3PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
Fifth, emergency medical technician takes care of the patient who are sick, undergone injury or
any emergency cases. The fails in evaluation of the patient which is done on the basis of
assessment made by the nurse. Hence, showing unprofessional misconduct in work can impact
the responsibility of the emergency medical technician in giving emergency care to the patient
(Brenner et al., 2018). They can give ineffective care to the patient leading to health
complication. (Bailey et al., 2015).
Lastly, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that for every health care
professional it in important for them to maintain and execute their work with perfection in order
to give effective care. For any nurse showing unprofessional behavior, should be evaluated and
issue a reprimand.

4PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT IN HEALTH CARE SECTOR
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