Question

CASE STUDY 2 Ned is preparing the OR for an emergency procedure. He is rushing because he knows that the patient will soon be brought into the OR and he may not have time to complete his preparations, Ned is opening the final item; just as he is about to place the item on the back table, he notices a small hole in the wrapper. 1. What moral/ethical concept will Ned use to make the "right" decision? 2. What are Ned's options, and what is the best choice? 3. If Ned makes the wrong choice, what possible impact could this have on the patient?

Answer 1

1)In this scenario Ned will use two ethical principles like nonmalificence which is about doing no harm to the patient.harm can be intentional or unintentional but being a nurse if you can perform any action to prevent that harm by using the principle of nonmalificence it would provide safe patient care.A nurse not suppose to do any actions that will harm the well-being of the patient.onr more principle which Ned uses is autonomy to take the right decision.once Ned saw that there is a hole in one of the wrappers which makes the packet unsterile and he being a nurse also knows the effects he will be causing to the patient if he uses a unstrile item for surgery.In this case he will use the ethics of autonomy to decide.because he has the right and choice to take appropriate decisions.

2) Considering the principles of asepsis any tear or dismantled packaging,wet package is considered as sterile because the sterility of an item is event based and not time based .So the best option for Ned is to discard the entire item or consider it as unsterile and not to use it for the surgery unless it is send for sterilization and repacked in the mean time he can use another packet of item

3)The impact of using an unsterile object is very grave .Any tear in the packaging system is enough for the organism to enter and contaminate it .This can lead to surgical site infection.The patient soon post operatively may experience fever,redness tenderness at the surgical site,oozing from the site,raised white blood cells all are the symptoms of surgical site infection.And complications of Surgical site infections can be sepsis leading to death,failure if any implants ,failure of any anastomosis.It can increase the patients length of hospital stay,increased hospital bills.it can lead to use of higher antibiotics for SSI which can lead to later Resistance.