Malpractice In Nursing

Malpractice is condition that can threat to Nurses Career instead of can bring nurses to the jail. In daily nursing activity are common occur malpractice act if nurses didn't take care or do carefully activity to patient. Nurses must be follow the right procedures or nursing standard guide line when they want to perform any activity to patient if nurses negligent or do careless it will be harm, injury, even though death to patient life it is meant nurses doing malpractice. Nurses must be understand about what is Malpractice it self so in the nurses daily activity nurses can be avoided violence and malpractice.

What is Malpractice?
In the field of law, malpractice refers to the situation when a professional is proved to have failed to use proper levels of care, skill or diligence in the performance of its professional activities causing harm to its patient or customers. Generally, a professional can be accused of malpractice if he fails to perform his or her professional duties in an assignment, such as an operation or simple check-up, he or she has accepted at the standard level of care, skill and learning normally that one can expect from the average careful renown member of the profession in the community.

Nursing Malpractice
Nursing malpractice occurs only under two conditions: You make a mistake that harms a patient, and the mistake is one that a reasonably careful nurse wouldn't have made in a similar situation. The law doesn't require you to provide the best or safest care humanly possible only to meet a reasonable standard.
In a malpractice case must prove two points:

• you did something wrong that a reasonably prudent nurse wouldn't have done
  
• your mistake was a proximate cause of his injury. To establish proximate cause, the patient would have to show that your wrongful conduct was a substantial factor in the harm he suffered.

Nurses with a higher level of skills or education will be expected to use their higher skills and knowledge when providing patient care.
This is the most important element in establishing or defending a claim for malpractice against a nurse. It is perhaps the one key area where nurses may avoid malpractice by doing their homework in advance. No matter what positions nurses hold, what locations they work in, or what types of nursing they practice, nurses must be aware of what the standard of care is to avoid committing malpractice by followed guidelines by various nursing associations (for example, the American Nurses Association(ANA) and regulatory establishments (such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations or JCAHO) as well as the Nurse Practice Act provided by the state, just to name a few.

To avoid nursing malpractice a nurse have to be following the correct order and read carefully before taking any nursing action.
Nurses responsibilities is to follow physicians' orders in a competent and timely manner. Failing to do so exposes you to the charge of nursing malpractice.

Paradoxically, however, following orders to a T can also be disastrous. Suppose, for example, the physician orders a penicillin injection for a patient with a documented penicillin allergy. If you fail to check the patient's allergy history and administer the drug, you (along with the physician) would be liable for malpractice if the patient were harmed. In a court of law, "just following orders" is no excuse if the orders are clearly off base.

But many situations aren't so clear-cut Imagine that the physician prescribes a course of treatment that you're unfamiliar with or a drug dosage that's outside recommended parameters. If you have doubts about the order's appropriateness, question the physician to make sure he hasn't simply made an error. If he confirms the order but you're still uncomfortable with it, discuss your questions further with the physician, consult with a pharmacist, check relevant references, and notify your nurse-manager of your concerns. In an extreme situation, withhold the treatment or drug and notify your manager. Depending on the circumstances, she or the prescribing physician may administer the questionable treatment or drug.

Document all your efforts to clarify the order. Anything less jeopardizes your license if the patient is harmed and later sues.

Read Nursing Malpractice cases
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