Nursing Student: Law 101

Tort. Assault. Battery. Neglect. These are words that make every nurse(and nursing student) break out into a cold sweat, to re-evaluate their chosen career. Because you see, the law is not kind to nurses..the law is brutal. You hear about all these terms, all the legal mumbo-jumbo and you're like "Whatev-I'm not a lawyer. I don't need to know that stuff." But you do need to know it, & the biggest thing you need to know is that YOU DOCUMENT EVERYTHING that you did. Because if you don't document, it didn't happen. And maybe you've been a nurse for 25+ years and forget to document something & the hospital fires you and the nursing board revokes your lisence and you don't have the money for a court battle and you have to start over, find another career path. Or maybe the patient suffers actual harm, & you end up in jail. (I don't think type 1's do well in jail. I think I'd be living at 300+ mg/dl in fear of collapsing from hypoglycemia, and probably not make it out alive.Nothing is under your control in jail,& when you collapse in your cell unconscious the guards probably just let you die.) Therein lies my biggest fear of nursing, and I think that would dictate a fairly low-stress ZERO CHANCE OF DISASTER nursing field. I hear stories of nurses who make just one mistake and their career/life is over,& it scares me to death. These are good nurses, & it happens just like that. But mostly I never want to end up in jail, with no freedom to manage my diabetes and having limited contac...
Source: The D-Log Cabin - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs