Published
You can use "nurse" or "this nurse" or avoid using I by changing the sentence. instead of saying "I bathed the patient and changed the linens", you can say "patient was bathed and linens changed" or something like that.
Or you can say "Central line dressing changed, maintained sterile field throughout procedure"
edit: I see your are talking about incident reports and not just charting... If you are writing an incident report, you can write it as a third person and just use your name.
This is actually an old school way of charting. If you go to any seminars on charting they teach that you CAN use I. They also suggest you use the names of any other healthcare professional you speak with by first and last name and title, which is taboo to nurses who've been taught otherwise. I say if you're on orientation or precepting do what they tell you, if not do it the way you were taught in nursing school or what's the latest information. Be leery (sp?) anytime a nurse tells you that you do something "just because". Hope I've helped. :)
tp4ublue
5 Posts
Is there any reason why we can not use the wrod "I" while documenting or writing an incident report. The nurses I work with use "this writer" instead?