There is a common saying that nobody is perfect. No human being is immune to errors and mistakes from time to time. Not even trained professionals in the course of discharging their duties and roles. In a medical setting, the cost of even the simplest of errors could be immense. For this reason, it would be prudent to assess/examine the legal and ethical implications of disclosure and non-disclosure of a

Medication Error Disclosure: Ethical Implications Although making mistakes may be an inevitable fact of life, when nurses make errors in regards to medications, they have an obligation to report the error. From a deontological ethical perspective, the fact that the consequences of the error were minor or nonexistent is irrelevant. The existence of error is still significant in highlighting some failure, either in the administering advance practice nurse’s preparation and use

Ethical Dilemmas in Responding to Nursing Medication ErrorsIt is well documented that medication errors made by nurses are among the most prevalent but also the most preventable types of adverse patient incidents that occur in health care settings today. The impact of these medication errors is also severe and even life-threatening, and the potential for an increase in the numbers and frequencies of medication errors has been compounded in recent

Introduction An estimated 1.5 million “preventable adverse drug events” occur each year in the United States alone; the number of medication errors that did not lead to adverse effects but remained undisclosed is unknown (Jenkins & Vaida, 2007, p. 41). The scenario is this: You are working as an advanced practice nurse at a community health clinic. You make an error when prescribing a drug to a patient. You do not

Ethics and Legalities of Medication Error Disclosure As Philipsen and Soeken (2011) note, it is the nurse's duty and ethical responsibility to inform the patient of any medical error in treatment, even if the error is "insignificant." The patient still has a right to know, as do all individuals who are impacted by the error (staff as well). This allows the medical community to remain transparent, which is a foundation

Legal Aspects of Medical Errors Various factors in the health care system are reported to be contributors to medication errors. This work reviews a case study discussed in 'Hospital Pharmacy' (Smetzer and Cohen, 1998) which provides a clear example of the complex nature of the health care system and the process of medication use and how this interrelates to medication safety and quality. The nurse made the decision to administer the