Question

You are a nurse assigned to a patient who has been admitted to the hospital for a critical illness. Her daughter is a practicing physician in the area and has privileges to practice at that hospital. You approach the nursing station and witness the daughter writing order in the patient's chart. What should you do? What is the ethical dilemma? Are any bill of right or law violated and if so, which one and how? How does this impact the patient's plan of care? what possible solutions are there for this situation?

Answer 1

A primary doctor of the patient should have given reference to another doctor to see a patient. Here the daughter was not given any reference so she has no legal rights to write orders.It is best to inform her professionally that as per the protocol a doctor cannot write prescription without a reference. The ethical dilemma is how a provider can be directly informed for not writing orders.Law is violated here.This can impact the patient's plan of care by creating controversy between two provider ,miscommunicated data to the nursing professional.The possible solutions is reporting to the administration to avoid any consequences.