Mrs. Smith Case Study: Lack Of Care

§ inappropriate treatment of people with infection and lack of information in the person’s personal care plan

It was clear negligence when it was so obvious that the toes did not have proper circulation. If the nurses were doing their job by checking on the extremities should have quickly noticed that there were circulation issues. By not reporting this was pure negligence.

Beneficence compounded by nurse-physician communication created ethical problems in this case. Mainly, Joanna’s assessment of Mrs. Kelly being ignored by the resident physician and the nursing supervisor. Joanna worked within the scope and standards of practice, she assessed, evaluated, and monitored her patient’s condition. She then reported her findings to the resident twice, and also sought nursing support from her shift supervisor. After Joanna’s first call to the resident, and her continued concern she needed to advocate in a proactive manner. Continuing her assessment of Mrs. Kelly to include palpation and auscultation could have offered additional clinical information enabling her to articulate the problem to the resident and nursing supervisor.

The plaintiff in Ard v. East Jefferson General Hospital, stated on 20 May, she had rang the nurses station to inform the nursing staff that her husband was experiencing symptoms of nausea, pain, and shortness of breathe. After ringing the call button for several times her spouse received his medication. Mrs. Ard noticed that her husband continued to have difficulty breathing and ringing from side to side, the patient spouse rang the nursing station for approximately an hour and twenty-five minutes until the defendant (Ms. Florscheim) enter the room and initiated a code blue, which Mr. Ard didn’t recover. The expert witness testified that the defendant failed to provide the standard of care concerning the decease and should have read the physician’s progress notes stating patient is high risk upon assessment and observation. The defendant testified she checked on the patient but no documentation was noted. The defendant expert witness disagrees with breech of duty, which upon cross-examination the expert witness agrees with the breech of duty. The district judge, upon judgment, the defendant failed to provide the standard of care (Pozgar, 2012, p. 215-216) and award the plaintiff for damages from $50,000 to $150,000 (Pozgar, 2012, p. 242).

An experienced nurse Julie Thao was taking care of 16-yeas old Jasmine Gant who was about t give a birth. Thao is accused of making a mistake that had terrible and tragic result on the life of a pregnant teenage, unborn child, Gant’s family, health care, and Thao’s life. Thao mistakenly gave Gant an epidural anesthetic intravenously instead of an IV antibiotic for a strep infection. Within minutes of receiving the epidural IV, Gant suffered seizures and died. Her child, a boy, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section and survived. So what caused this tragedy to happen? According to investigation, Thao improperly removed the epidural bag from a locked storage system without authorization, she did not scan the bar code, which would have told

A nurse attending stated “during the morning’s second surgery, he actually dozed off. The nurse took him aside and recommended that he take a break, but he refused and returned to the operation.” The nurse here was in fault in more ways than one. This nurse should never allowed the doctor return back to operate on the patient, he should have been removed from the operating room immediately. The nurse should have

In this case, the accident is the proximate cause of Mrs. Smith’s injuries and the medical providers are the intervening cause, as their breach of duty exacerbated Mrs. Smith’s injury to the point of permanent disability and disfigurement.

The nurse practitioner in the case potentially violated fidelity to evidence-based practice. The most obvious dilemma was that she neglected her commitment to an evidence-based approach to managing a sore throat and potentially inappropriately prescribed an antibiotic despite a negative office rapid-strep test. This decision goes against the Code of Ethic for Nursing (provision eight) as it relates to a professional obligation to promote community health needs (American Nurses Association, 2015). Prescribing antibiotics inappropriately can contribute to resistant organisms in the community. In work by Hand (2013), "exposure to antibiotics in primary care is consistently associated with a subsequent twofold risk of antibiotic resistance" (p. 500).

The district nursing team were now to be responsible for the wound care of an ulcer on the sole of her right foot on her impending discharge. She had previously attended the practice nurse and a podiatry service based within her local clinic. Due to a change in circumstances, she was now clearly housebound for the near future due to mobility issues. Prior to an arranged visit, the patient had called the nurse to advise her that she was pyrexial and was experiencing a pain in her right foot that was different from her normal neuropathic pain, which was often problematic. She was also finding it difficult to mobilise and was disinclined for diet but was taking oral fluids.

Mrs. Jones is an 89 year-old woman who migrated to Australia from Germany 40 years ago. Since the passing of her husband two years ago, Amaile’s health has begun to slowly deteriorate obliging her to leave her active lifestyle.

Mr. J.’s daughter noticed a red mark on her father who then reported this to the nursing assistant and her concerns were immediately dismissed. If the nursing assistant was properly trained in the use of restraints and had knowledge of patient outcomes, this patient would not have developed a pressure ulcer. The nursing assistant should have immediately informed the nurse and measurements should have been taken to prevent further breakdown of the patient’s skin which was not done. It is evident in reading this case that Mr. J developed a Stage I pressure ulcer from being retrained in one position with no assessment or release for an undetermined amount of time.

M was taking a look at his leg that was injured but seemed to be healing. All was thought to be well until one office visit the doctor went across the hall to check on another patient who seemed to have an infected leg. The doctor left the door open where confidentiality here was obviously not being taking into consideration for the patient he was seeing as well as others who were able to hear them. Since the door was open, his parents noticed that he did not change his gloves while entering that other room and came back to check on their son with no gloves on. Dr. M was concerned about Jacobs leg and told him to come back the following week while treating it with antibiotics. The following week he comes back only to see that he has developed osteomyelitis. This was the same infection that the other patient developed while under the care of his supervision. Jacobs delay in his recover cost him the opportunity to play football and a college scholarship. Jacobs’s parents then resorted to suing Dr. M because of his negligence and lack of medical

The negligence of this incident had a negative impact on the patient’s family members. Approximately 25% of cases involving medical negligence involve poor nursing care. Another negative aspect was patient’s family follow up was poor resulting in lack of importance highlighted on the pressure wounds. Ashley (2003) states nurses can be sued for malpractice, this means he or she is being sued for “negligence”. Furthermore, the nursing health professionals can lose its credibility among a community as they failed to provide a holistic care for the patient. However, a positive outcome was nurses were able to reflect among this evidence based practice to assist in better quality in patient

Maria Niceforo, a 75-year-old woman receiving in-home nursing care, had died of infection due to numerous pressure wounds (Le May, 2016). She was admitted to the hospital presenting with a bleeding pressure wound across her back and legs that had penetrated through the bone (Le May, 2016). It was also observed that the wounds were soiled with urine and dried faeces (Le May, 2016). She was receiving in-home support from registered nurses, who according to her son, were not consistent nor reliable in their care of Mrs. Niceforo (Le May, 2016). Another contributing factor to her death was inadequate communication and documentation of her treatment (Menagh, 2016). For example, one of the nurses had reported not providing treatment to Mrs. Niceforo's bottom as she was not aware of it (Menagh, 2016). I was quite

Joanna is an experienced nurse taking care of Mrs. Kelly, who was Joanna’s patient many times in the past for her primary problem which is COPD. This time Mrs. Kelly was admitted with complaints of abdominal pain what was different from her primary diagnoses. Her vital signs were with normal limits and no significant changes from privies results, but for the nurse she looks sick, and Joanna know that something is wrong. She calls the resident doctor, but he tell her to watches and calls back with series changes. Joanna multiple attempts to report that something needs to be done to evaluate the cause of Mrs. Kelly pain was ask to calm down. However nobody took patient symptoms series and the next day patient died.