Nurses Are Given Much Responsibility During Patient Care.

Medication administration is one of the first key elements you learn in nursing school. The standard is held high as the clinical instructors ask you to validate why you are giving a medication, what exactly it does, and to make sure that your patient meets the criteria to receive a medication. They watch you check the medication three times before it gets to a patient’s body, ensuring it is correct. However, medication errors stand as the third leading cause of death in the United States. There are endless reasons as to why this is the case, but Brian R. Malone keys in on the idea of “Intimidating Behavior Jeopardizing Medication Safety” How does the demeanor of medication providers effect those administering it? The purpose of this paper is to summarize the thoughts and ideas Malone discusses about the behavior, actions, and words that lead nurses and pharmacists to administer medications that cause adverse events and jeopardize patient safety.

“Sonny’s Blues,” which is an outstanding short story by James Baldwin, describes many obstacles in lifestyles and relationships of African-Americans in the influential time of post Harlem Renaissance and discrimination in the 1950s. In the end of the story, the nightclub setting is the most important and emotional turning point of the brotherhood between narrator and his young brother, Sonny. After many conflicts and arguments about their different ideals and lifestyles, Sonny tries to open his heart to let his brother understand him by inviting the narrator to come to his jazz music performance at a small nightclub in Greenwich Village. At this place, he meets friends of Sonny, acquaint himself with jazz music and tries to get into Sonny’s world. He carefully observes any changes of his brother on the stage. Sonny is nervous and has trouble in the beginning of the performance. However, Sonny quickly gets back on track. His music seems to touch everyone, including his brother, by its beauty and freedom. The narrator becomes proud of Sonny. Eventually, he recognizes his brother’s talent and understands that Sonny was born to be a real musician.

Reviewing the common errors and issues nurses are faced with can help reduce the amount of overall medication errors made. A study in a Swedish hospital revealed great insights about what exactly goes wrong during medication administration by registered nurses. The study was conducted in a 1000 bed university hospital; samples were taken from three separate units. “For the purposes of this study, MA accuracy was defined as a medication dose administered exactly as ordered by the doctor.” (Gunningberg, Poder, Donaldson, &, Swenne, 2014)

Amlodipine besylate (AM) [3-Ethyl 5-methyl (4RS)-2-[(2-aminoethoxy) methyl]-4-(2-chlorophenyl)- 6-methyl-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate benzenesulphonate] [1]. Amlodipine besylate is a calcium channel blocker that inhibits the trans membrane influx of calcium ions into vascular smooth muscle and cardiac muscle [2]. The chemical structure of amlodipine besylate is shown in (Figure

Three primary concerns are medication mistakes, the aspect of good patient care, and the nurses’ reputation (Mandatory, 2003).

Nursing medication errors were examined by having nurses take surveys based on their perception of why medication errors are occurring as well as visiting their work setting and observing any errors. Nurses are encouraged to take precaution when administering medications to ensure that the correct medication as well as the dose, is given to the correct patient. It is imperative for hospitals to enforce medication stipulations to ensure that nurses are double checking medication labels. Studies show that causes of medication errors are due to nurse’s not understanding protocol, administration errors related to overworked weary

of the nursing team. Medication errors were not reported back to the nurse manager due to fear

“Machiavelli wrote The Prince to serve as a handbook for rulers, and he claims explicitly throughout the work that he is not interested in talking about the ideal republics or imaginary utopias, as many of his predecessors had done” (Harrison). There is an ongoing debate about which philosopher’s ideas are most correct on the subject of leadership. Two main philosophers come to mind when thinking of this topic and they are Machiavelli with his book The Prince and Plato’s dialogue The Republic. The Republic takes a very theoretical point of view on leadership and portrays life as it should be in an ideal state, whereas Machiavelli’s The Prince, takes a more realistic point of view. Machiavelli is less interested with what things should be

One of the many responsibilities of a nurse is administering medications. Improper transcription, dispensing, administering, and reporting can result in medication errors. The article Simple Steps to Reduce Medication Errors recognizes how detrimental errors can be to the patient and the facility (Chu, 2016). An error in medication can lead to an extended stay for the patient, resulting in serious harm or death.

Nurses are responsible for multiple patients on any given day making medication errors a potential problem in the nursing field. Medication administration not only encompasses passing medication to the patients yet begins with the physician prescribing the medication, pharmacy filling the correct prescription and ending with the nurse administering and monitoring the patient for any adverse effect from the medication. According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP), ‘A medication error refers to any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional,

Another causative issue to medication error was poor staff knowledge about medications. 46% (n=32) of registered nurses and 37% (n=15) of student nurses stated that not having enough knowledge about medications increases the risk for creating an error. It is essential for the person passing meds to identify potential side effects, the drug type, contraindication and it interactions to reduce the patient may encounter for taking the medication. The qualitative review of registered nurses reinforced this issue.

Mion and Sandhu (2016) stated “at the individual level, nurses must practice safe medication administration behaviors prior to every administration of every medication: compare the medication to the medical administration record, label the medication throughout the process, check two forms of patient identification, immediate documentation, and explain to patient” (p. 154). By following the 7 rights of medication administration, nurses can reduce the number medication errors. Nurses are held accountable for the medication that they are administering and must “continually

The sampling was of 38 nurses and a convenience sample was used. Contributing factors to medication errors included nurses tired and exhausted, physician’s writing illegible, and nurses distracted/ interrupted. Distraction may lead to not completing the “five rights” of medication administration. Poor communication was also perceived as a reason for error. Preventative measures were listed as following the five rights and a computerized system for prescribing and documenting

Edwards and Axe (2015), found that nurses not only need to understand the issues related to the administration of drugs given but also aware of the full medication journey. The journey starts with the doctor writing the prescription, pharmacist looking over the medication and putting the order together, then nurses double-checking before giving it to their patient. Drug errors can occur at any point, nurses need to be on their toes at all times while giving medication. Drug errors can include the wrong quantity being prescribed, the drug being intended for another patient, poor labeling and storage, and out of date drugs NPSA, (2007). Jones and Treiber (2010) found that illegible or unclear physician handwriting and staff not following the five rights had the highest percentage of why drug errors occur.

As a result medication errors are costly and seem to be relative to the staffing of nurses. Given that nurses make up such a large segment of the staff population, it is important to identify with the factors behind these medication errors.