Question

DISCUSSION QUESTION 1-1

MH651 Ethics in Health Care

Lesson 1: Laws, Ethics, and Medical Care

Upon completion of the Required Readings, write a thorough, well-planned narrative answer to the following discussion question. Rely on your Required Readings and the Lecture and Research Update for specific information to answer the discussion question, but turn to your original thoughts when asked to apply, evaluate, analyze, or synthesize the information.  Your Discussion Question response should be both grammatically and mechanically correct, and formatted in the same fashion as the question itself. If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc.  In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your responses and document in a bibliography using APA style.

Discussion Question 1 (50 points)

Suppose a patient complains of a burning sensation associated with the heparin injection that he is administered daily, but the patient is non-ambulatory. The nurse administers the heparin injection anyway because she knows it will help prevent a blood clot.  

(a) In this case, please explain whether or not the nurse violated the patient’s rights in any way. If so, explain how. If not, explain why not.

(b) Provide a thorough explanation and defend your answer using the law to support your decision.

Answer 1

a. In the present scenario, we can see that a non-ambulatory patient is taking a heparin injection daily to prevent blood clot. Suppose a patient complains of a burning sensation associated with the heparin injection. But anyway the nurse administers the heparin injection because she knows that it will prevent a blood clot.

Here we can see that the patient complains of burning sensation associated with the heparin injection, then also the nurse administers it. She has not violated the patient rights, she did her duty in a correct way, why because if a patient is getting the heparin daily there is no way to get the burning sensation associated with the heparin after a long time. she knows that. Anyway, the patient is bedridden and they may get the chance to form clots that result in further complications to the important body systems. To avoid the complicated situation she administered the heparin injection to the patient even after the patient complains of the burning sensation.

b) As a nurse, our duty is to protect the patient from any injury and do good for them. Here she is obligated to her duty and she is not having any intention to harm the patient. The patient is mistaken that the burning sensation is associated with the heparin injection, the nurse has to explain the rationale regarding the reason for given the injection.