helping a friend

Nurses Relations

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Ok so this may be a very dumb question.

A friend of my mothers husband is dying of cancer. He is coming home from the hospital soon on hospice. He is very ill, and from the sounds of it does not have much time left. His wife is a very close friend of my mothers. My mother is organizing, friends to come help the wife take care of him, and of course offered my help.

Not that i don't mind helping! but I have taken care of many family members who has since passed on from cancer. However in the past, i have been family and not a licensed nurse. So I didn't know if i'm allowed to give him his meds?

I know my mother's friend, but not all that well.

As a now RN helping a friend, am I allowed to give him his perscribed medications?

She is not paying me, so I'm not the hired RN. But it's not like they are family either. I just wasn't sure since now I'm an RN, where the legal standpoint is on this type of thing.

Freindship is not about being there when they are up, but rather being there when they are down and only you can help them. That is being a friend

It's also being a friend to maintain the boundaries of that friendship.....If you want to give meds to your friend, fine. That's up to you. What is not up to you is to judge how I deal with my relationships. :) I've been around plenty of friends when they were down- and they kept wanting more and more- that were NOT OK with a friendship. There need to be boundaries, and mine are obviously different than yours- if yours work for you- great. Mine work for me.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

It's a wonderful thing you want to do, offering friendship and support.

But do not give the med's. If ANYTHING goes wrong, or the wife/family gets annoyed at something they perceive you do wrong, they WILL sue you, and you will feel the backlash. Remember, emotions are running high when someone you love is dying. So if they even take offence at the slightest thing that goes wrong (or they perceive something you do as being wrong), they will rain down on you hard with their anger.

Better to not get involved and keep a professional distance. And you have to think of your license first, I hate to say, but I would be thinking of my license before anything else.

With a pump, you shouldn't have to change it anyway, the hospice team will have someone there to do that when it needs to be changed, as they will set it for the 24 hours or whatever then come and change the syringe.

Helping care for a dying 'friend' (or friend of a friend/relative) is a grand thing, but as soon as you make one error, they will see you as a professional who is incompetent, and will be after you like a pack of wolves. Friendship and niceness doesn't even come into it when people are ++ upset, and there is someone else around to blame, doesn't matter how close you are.

Something similar like this happened to a friend of mine, and she wishes to this day she had never got involved in any way whatsoever.

I PERSONALLY would commiserate, maybe offer to cook food and take that over, but I would not be helping out with any of his personal care at all - not even to sit with him. My personal objectivity would not let me I'm afraid.

I think you are getting too involved with a family that you don't really know because you are firstly a nurse & want to help, but secondly that you are feeling sorry for them. Distancing yourself professionally is sometimes the best thing for a patient.

I would not be getting involved at all and I don't think you should either, because it sounds like you are just feeling sorry for them.

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i say go for helping them.

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I can understand agree with both sides of this issue. It's true that you could potentially be sued if things go wrong which should make you cautious, but sometimes we have to do what our hearts tell us is the right thing to do regardless of the potential for detrimental personal consequences.

I do, however, think it would be wise of you to obtain your own personal (today!) if you don't already have it. That way you would at least have peace of mind knowing that if the worse does happen and you were sued, you would have the wherewithal to defend yourself against any allegations of wrongdoing.

ETA: It is my opinion, and that of many other members, that every nurse should purchase her own liability insurance, and not just because of this type of scenario because it isn't likely to occur that often in an individual's life. There are discussions of this topic which you can search if you care to check into it further.

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it's a wonderful thing you want to do, offering friendship and support.

but do not give the med's. if anything goes wrong, or the wife/family gets annoyed at something they perceive you do wrong, they will sue you, and you will feel the backlash. remember, emotions are running high when someone you love is dying. so if they even take offence at the slightest thing that goes wrong (or they perceive something you do as being wrong), they will rain down on you hard with their anger.

better to not get involved and keep a professional distance. and you have to think of your license first, i hate to say, but i would be thinking of my license before anything else.

with a pump, you shouldn't have to change it anyway, the hospice team will have someone there to do that when it needs to be changed, as they will set it for the 24 hours or whatever then come and change the syringe.

helping care for a dying 'friend' (or friend of a friend/relative) is a grand thing, but as soon as you make one error, they will see you as a professional who is incompetent, and will be after you like a pack of wolves. friendship and niceness doesn't even come into it when people are ++ upset, and there is someone else around to blame, doesn't matter how close you are.

something similar like this happened to a friend of mine, and she wishes to this day she had never got involved in any way whatsoever.

i personally would commiserate, maybe offer to cook food and take that over, but i would not be helping out with any of his personal care at all - not even to sit with him. my personal objectivity would not let me i'm afraid.

i think you are getting too involved with a family that you don't really know because you are firstly a nurse & want to help, but secondly that you are feeling sorry for them. distancing yourself professionally is sometimes the best thing for a patient.

i would not be getting involved at all and i don't think you should either, because it sounds like you are just feeling sorry for them.

while what you are saying is certainly possible, you say this as though it were fact. we don't know these people, so we certainly cannot proclaim these things with any degree of certainty as you are doing. for all you know, this is the last thing they would ever do.

that said, the op seems uncomfortable with the situation. with this kind of wariness, i think it would be best for the op to go with their gut-no meds or treatments. we should always follow our instincts when possible/prudent.

the op can still provide emotional support to the family and can take on normal tasks that any family or friend could do, such as cooking meals, running errands for the wife, helping with turning, laundry, etc.

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There is no liablilty in doing this, You are not acting out of your scope of practice since technically he is NOT your patient. He is a friend and you are helping him, there is no pay for services being provided to you so you are not acting in the role of a nurse. You were not engaged to do specific acts or specific care other than to sit with him and provide what he needs.

I am not saying that, as nurses, we should refuse to help out neighbors and friends, esp. in a situation like this, but I would encourage you to check what you are saying above with your state BON. RN licensure is 24/7, and we can't "turn it off" and stop being an RN just because we are not being paid. There is a lot more to whether one has entered into a nurse-patient relationship with someone than whether money is changing hands. If someone chooses to sit with a sick friend to help a family out, we are still legally responsible for acting within our legal scope of practice, and, if something went wrong while the nurse was present, the nurse would be legally responsible for her/his actions -- as an RN, not as a friend or neighbor.

This is the same kind of situation as someone stopping to help out at the scene of an accident -- you're legally accountable for your actions (and, although all states (I think) now have some kind of "Good Samaritan" law, they don't protect you if something goes wrong and you didn't do everything you should have within your professional scope of practice).

Again, I'm not saying that the OP shouldn't help out a friend or neighbor, just that people should be aware of their professional responsibilities in these kinds of situations. Professional licensure (of any kind) is serious business. Also, this is another example, as someone else already mentioned, of why it's a good idea to carry one's own, individual . Your own insurance covers you in situations like this, while your employer's insurance only covers you while you're at work for your employer.

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I am not saying that, as nurses, we should refuse to help out neighbors and friends, esp. in a situation like this, but I would encourage you to check what you are saying above with your state BON. RN licensure is 24/7, and we can't "turn it off" and stop being an RN just because we are not being paid. There is a lot more to whether one has entered into a nurse-patient relationship with someone than whether money is changing hands. If someone chooses to sit with a sick friend to help a family out, we are still legally responsible for acting within our legal scope of practice, and, if something went wrong while the nurse was present, the nurse would be legally responsible for her/his actions -- as an RN, not as a friend or neighbor.

This is the same kind of situation as someone stopping to help out at the scene of an accident -- you're legally accountable for your actions (and, although all states (I think) now have some kind of "Good Samaritan" law, they don't protect you if something goes wrong and you didn't do everything you should have within your professional scope of practice).

Again, I'm not saying that the OP shouldn't help out a friend or neighbor, just that people should be aware of their professional responsibilities in these kinds of situations. Professional licensure (of any kind) is serious business. Also, this is another example, as someone else already mentioned, of why it's a good idea to carry one's own, individual liability insurance. Your own insurance covers you in situations like this, while your employer's insurance only covers you while you're at work for your employer.

I couldn't agree with this more!

The only thing I would pick at a little bit is whether or not an employer's insurance actually covers a nurse even at work. Even though I believe this is an important issue, particularly for new nurses, this isn't really a discussion about insurance, so I will leave it at that for now and just encourage the OP to look into it further and purchase her own.

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Again Thank You ALL for your advice!

In the past, I would never even second guess it, I would help in a heart beat! as I know my family and friends would do the same for me. However that piece of paper changes everything! I would love to help in any way I can without personally streaching myself that is, I just wanted to know if there could be any repercussions on my license because of helping. I have always planned on getting my own , just haven't done it yet (only been licensed about 3 weeks).

I think I will contact the BON and find out what the legal stand point is on this issue, and what a cannot do and can do. If it was my family or my best friend, I never would of even asked the question, I just would have done it. but because I do not the them well, and I do not know his children at all, I wanted to make sure I cover my butt!

The wife just is looking to my mom and I because she has never been through something like this before, and sadly my mother and I have way to many times, with our own family.

Cancer plaguing my family is the reason I became a nurse! My own family is no stranger to caring for the dying. This is something I have been a part of since I was a child. I absolutely agree that careing for the dying is a privilege!

I thank you all again for advice!

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Specializes in Home Health.

Save yourself the stress, call your Board of Nursing and ask them.

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Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.

Go ahead and flame away...I personally feel that people get WAY to worked up these days about every little detail that COULD go wrong. Have you ever had a kid spend the night at your house and hand them a bedtime bowl of ice cream - OMG what if they were allergic to the ice cream...what if you should have asked before you gave it to them...what if their parent sues you for this...see my point.

OP, it is relatively safe to assume that you became a nurse because you wanted to help people and make a difference in someones life. If this family is someone you have those feelings for then by all means, help them. As others have said, you are not prescribing medication and you're probably not even using any ounce of critical thinking. You would simply be giving medication exactly as the caregiver (wife) instructs you too.

Common sense people...we can't live our lives wallowing in the "What ifs of the world" or we would fail to live.

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I couldn't agree with this more!

The only thing I would pick at a little bit is whether or not an employer's insurance actually covers a nurse even at work. Even though I believe this is an important issue, particularly for new nurses, this isn't really a discussion about insurance, so I will leave it at that for now and just encourage the OP to look into it further and purchase her own.

ITA, and I didn't mean to imply that one is adequately covered even at work by one's employer's insurance (I'm another of those cagey old nurses who would never work a single day, for any organization, without my own coverage). I was just pointing out that, apart from to whatever extent one may be covered at work by the employer's insurance, you are definitely not covered by them if you're volunteering (or moonlighting) out in the community (but you would be fully covered by your own, individual policy).

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ITA, and I didn't mean to imply that one is adequately covered even at work by one's employer's insurance (I'm another of those cagey old nurses who would never work a single day, for any organization, without my own coverage). I was just pointing out that, apart from to whatever extent one may be covered at work by the employer's insurance, you are definitely not covered by them if you're volunteering (or moonlighting) out in the community (but you would be fully covered by your own, individual policy).

I figured as much, but I wasn't sure if the OP knew that since she is a new nurse. That's the only reason I picked on that part of your post at all.

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