Forensic Nursing Chronicles

I consider myself a very ethical person and when faced with the realization that many of the nurses in the facility where I work did not care one way or the other about the people placed in their care. I work at one of the largest county jail in the country and although these human beings have committed some type of crime, there is no excuse for not being given respect and the proper medical care as indicated in a timely manner. Daily I noticed that when it was announced that there was some type of emergency involving an inmate, the nurses would just sit there and look at each other, it seemed like whichever one drew the short straw was the one who would have to go and check on the inmate. During many of these cases the only respondents to the area was me and a deputy, then a few minutes later a nurse would come as slowly as possible with the crash cart would stand and just stare at the inmate before ever touching them. I finally had seen enough neglect and notified my program manager who notified the nurse manager of these nurses which made no difference in their performance. My next step was to notify the board of nursing who took forever to investigate the incidence without ever finding fault or reasons for disciplinary actions. To this day the neglect continues but I have been removed from the area (which was not my idea) and now work where I do not have to be exposed to this hypocrisy daily. To me this was a slap in the face to all the people who are there to do the best job possible regardless of who the patient is or is not. It seems ethics takes a back seat for these nurses once they enter the job-site, but then again a leopard cannot change his spots. Original Post August 26, 2009 Title: Ethics Really enjoyed the chapter on ethics from my textbook in Dr. Johnson’s class; I was lucky enough to attend a 2 day seminar in Ottawa that was mostly focused on ethical dilemma’s in the workplace. We presented different scenario’s which were really useful for future guidance. Of particular interest was the Nurse-Doctor relationship; when to step out of bounds as a patient advocate. We are often faced with difficult decisions regarding treatment of our pts. Do we agree or disagree with what the Dr. has prescribed? In one case I knew if I followed through on the treatment plan that the pt. could suffer undue harm therefore I was left with no choice but to report the problem to a senior medical advisor. It caused an uncomfortable situation for the Dr., and myself however after much discussion he was able to understand I was only acting on behalf of the pt. The chapter really gave me some knowledge of how to handle these situations. Forensic Nursing Online Introduction Course Forensic Nursing Online Certificate Program, Forensic Nursing, Forensic Nursing Chronicles, Forensic Nursing Theories, Forensic Nursing Ethics, Forensic correctional nursing ethics

This entry was posted on August 26, 2009 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Correctional Nursing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.