Ethical Issues In Chasing Zero

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According to the documentary Chasing Zero, on the 4th of July weekend, Julie was working a double shift. After completing her first shift she took a nap in a patient room because she had not finished her paper work until around 0100 and was too tired to drive home. Around 0900 she met her patient, a 16-year old girl who was getting ready to deliver. The plan was to break the young girls water and start Pitocin so she could deliver. Julie followed her units protocol to prep the patient’s epidural at the same time she was preparing to administer and IV antibiotic. She entered the patients room with the patient’s IV antibiotic and epidural. Both the IV antibiotic and the epidural had identical tubing and similar packaging. Julie hung what she believed was the patients antibiotic, however it had been the epidural. Just as the medication began running the patient began to arrest. People fled to the patient’s room. Later that evening when the room was being cleaned the epidural bag was found and handed to Julie for her to see what she had given the patient. Following the incident, the hospital fired Julie and she was criminally charged. To avoid prison, Julie pled a misdemeanor and was stripped of her nursing license. The incident described above depicts an…show more content…
We are taught to always preserve a patient’s autonomy. However, was Julie’s preserved? She was stripped of her nursing license and charged with a misdemeanor for an accident. Although Julie did not spend any time in jail, she now had a criminal background. As a result, her career as nurse was forever lost and her name forever tarnished on any application she ever filled out. If this was to happen to Julie, does it happen to all nurses when they make an error. The ethical and legal ramifications of this event caused an innocent woman to have her life completely derailed by an event that could have happened to any nurse at any

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