Patient Advocacy
A patient complains they have 9/10 pain an hour after being given 1000mg of acetaminophen. What should you do?
contact the provider about getting a stronger medication for the patient to alleviate the pain
when redressing an abdominal wound you notice the doctor hasn't put gloves on how can you address this without concerning the patient?
hand the gloves to the doctor and say something along the lines of "here's those gloves you needed doctor"
a nurse is assigned to 9 patients and cannot keep up with this workload. What should they do?
Ask for help! Tell the charge nurse the concerns she is having and see if some patients can be reassigned
advocacy is not speaking up when something seems wrong/potentially harmful
FALSE
A patient who is LOC x4 is unable to respond to questions because the family is talking over them and speaking for the patient. What should happen next?
Ask the family if you can speak to the patient privately
while looking at Instagram you see that another co-worker posted a picture with a new mom and baby captioned what a great way to end a shift at Saint Luke's! What do you do?
Tell coworker to take down the post and report it to the appropriate hospital staff
A patient is threatening violence and calling a nurse derogatory names. Does the nurse have to put up with this?
NO! abuse is not something the nurse must endure.
Advocacy is something done to ensure what is best happens
TRUE
A patient complains their night nurse told them they would be okay when they said they were still experiencing pain and then never came back to check on them again. What should you do?
address the patient's current pain needs, then ask if they'd prefer a different nurse tonight? if yes, recommend to the charge nurse that the patient be assigned to a different night nurse and explain the patient concerns
While walking to a patient's room you overhear another nurse saying little Joey just got diagnosed with asthma and jokes that he won't be trying out for high school track next year. What should be done?
You should remind the coworker this conversation invades the patient's right to privacy and shouldn't be openly discussed.
A student nurse is being given only CNA work to do and overhears the nurse saying "this kid doesn't know anything, can't believe I have to deal with this today". What can the student nurse do?
remind the nurse they are here to learn RN work and/or talk to their clinical advisor about the treatment and what can be done
Providing education is NOT a form of advocacy
FALSE