I had an incident come up recently, but I wanted to see what you all thought. I don't remember all the specifics, but I'll give you the scenario as best I can. I had a patient who had surgery a few days prior. Some kind of Ortho surgery. The patient had been draining from his incision and had been monitored for a few days. I had the patient for night shift. If his drainage was improved in the morning, he was going to be discharged. However, in the unlikely scenario his drainage increased, the plan was to take the patient back to the OR. He was therefore NPO at midnight. At midnight, I removed the food and fluids from the bedside and told the patient he couldn't eat or drink. He basically said he'd tolerate while he was sleeping but there was no way he was agreeing to go the OR and in the morning he was eating. Everything was fine until the residents rounded at 5am. They didn't give him a definitive answer (they were waiting for the attending) and the man began to demand something to drink and food. I told him he was still NPO, but I'd check with the doctors. The residents refused to change the order, even if he was refusing the OR and also refused to come see him and speak with him about it. I tried to keep stalling the patient, but at this point he was becoming quite angry. He was physically not really capable of walking to the ice/water machine. I gave him some ice chips to tide him over. I personally felt like I should give him what he wanted. After all, he can refuse anything he wants to, including being NPO. But my manager said that if I gave him the fluids it was legally questionable. I managed to stave it off till I left at 7am and I'm not really sure what happened after that. Was I right or was my manager right?