What would a priority be when administering a medication?
a) is the med in the med cart?
b) is the dose ordered correct?
c) for the patient to state name
4) some other obviously wrong answer
I picked B. We have to make sure the dose is correct before administering right? For this question...WRONG! The question is to be read as you are already in the patient's room. Your priority at this point would be to have the patient to state name...:trout: . You should have checked to see if the dose is safe back in the med room.... .
Here's another angle. When the instructor wrote "is the dosage ordered correct"? maybe he/she meant to imply that the nurse was stepping beyond their scope as the nurse can't definitively say if the dosage ordered is correct. The nurse needs to notice if a dosage ordered seems too high or too low and should check it with the physician before giving the medication. So the nurse's role is to check with the physician if the order seems wrong but it's not the nurses' role to ultimately decide if the dosage is correct or not. After all, it could be a unique situation with an unsual dosage. The point of checking the dosage is that the nurse should always check if something doesn't seem right and not just blindly follow orders.
Still, if scope of practice is the point of the question or where in the process of the administration the nurse is, then couldn't one argue that answer "C" is incorrect because some patients can't state their name?
As a nursing student who remembers having the learn the semantics game fisrt quarter, I immediately picked C because of the "when administering" phrase. They could have said "before giving a medication___" and then I might have went with B, but the way it was worded led me to think of an immediately happening action.
I get that students have to learn to navigate the tests in school. I did pretty well at that myself. But just because I can test well on such questions doesn't mean that I think they are good test questions. Such questions aren't testing "critical thinking," they are only testing the student's ability to figure out the test-writer's style. I think there are ways to make challenging tests that evaluate if the students have a good grasp of important nursing concepts without resorting to "trick" questions (in this case, trying to lure the student into choosing B since it IS "a priority" at a different point during the medication administration process.)
I get that students have to learn to navigate the tests in school. I did pretty well at that myself. But just because I can test well on such questions doesn't mean that I think they are good test questions. Such questions aren't testing "critical thinking," they are only testing the student's ability to figure out the test-writer's style. I think there are ways to make challenging tests that evaluate if the students have a good grasp of important nursing concepts without resorting to "trick" questions (in this case, trying to lure the student into choosing B since it IS "a priority" at a different point during the medication administration process.)
I don't think there are any students who would disagree, we have learned to just deal with it though.
I would pick C just b/c the highest priority is always administering the med to the RIGHT pt. If it is the right dose, and everything else, but you give it to the wrong pt then the situation is still not working.
Also, in my school we are taught to check the armband and have the patient state their name to us.
I think the instructors try to put those types of questions on test's to get you to think outside of the box. Also, I am you need to think in that the question is "in a perfect world"....
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jjjoy, LPN
2,801 Posts
Here's another angle. When the instructor wrote "is the dosage ordered correct"? maybe he/she meant to imply that the nurse was stepping beyond their scope as the nurse can't definitively say if the dosage ordered is correct. The nurse needs to notice if a dosage ordered seems too high or too low and should check it with the physician before giving the medication. So the nurse's role is to check with the physician if the order seems wrong but it's not the nurses' role to ultimately decide if the dosage is correct or not. After all, it could be a unique situation with an unsual dosage. The point of checking the dosage is that the nurse should always check if something doesn't seem right and not just blindly follow orders.
Still, if scope of practice is the point of the question or where in the process of the administration the nurse is, then couldn't one argue that answer "C" is incorrect because some patients can't state their name?