New Nurse, morality question.

Nurses Safety

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I am a new nurse. By 'new' I mean I passed NCLEX 2 weeks ago. After I passed I sent out my resume and the place I wanted to work for gave me an interview. The interview went well, and afterwards my interviewer asked me if I wanted to shadow one of the nurses to see what the floor was like. I agreed and shadowed another nurse whom I got along with quite well. She was nice and seemed to really care about her patients, but near the end of my time there she went and got some morphine. She didn't need all of it, and needed to waste some. She called out to another nurse "what was your number again?" as she was leaving, and that nurse told her w/o ever looking at her and walked out. The nurse I was shadowing than put the number in, squirted the extra that she didn't need into the sink.

I am not going to say what I did. But what do you think I should have done?

Forgive me, I haven't read all the responses. I just want to say to the OP, leave this particular situation alone. When you ARE employed and working under your own license, follow your own ethics. If someone asks you to sign for a waste you did not witness say "No!". When you waste narcotics yourself make a point of telling the person who signs with you "I need you to actually witness me wasting this med. I don't feel right about you just taking my word that I wasted it." Set your own practice guidelines.

I would take this into consideration when choosing whether it was the kind of place I would feel comfortable working. But unless something was taking place that was directly harming a patient, I would not say anything.

Specializes in M/S, LTC, home care, corrections and psych.

"But than where do you draw the line?" When it involves your license.

Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
And this is why you shadow. To see up close how they do things and decide whether it's somewhere you want to work. If you do take the job, you know the right way to do things and you can tell your new coworkers you're just being persnickety as a new grad. They'll razz you for awhile then they'll just accept that you're persnickety. You might even be able to gradually change the culture, but not as a new hire, and not as a shadow.

If your first action as a shadow is to find fault, then you'll either not be offered the position, or you'll be hired to be the narc and your work life will be unlivable.

We once had two RNs from Europe contracted to work in our critical care unit for two years.

On had worked as an RN for 12 years at three different hospitals.

The younger one had two years experience on the same unit.

The first night they oriented the younger nurse was aghast that we lifted patients up in bed using a draw-sheet. She asked, "Don't you learn body mechanics in nursing school?"

We had a 90 something patient from a nursing home who suffered from dementia, lung cancer, and steroid dependent COPD and a decubitus ulcer.

That nurse was horrified saying, "Patients don't get bedsores in my country because we nurse them properly."

The other, more experienced, new nurse from the same country said, "I have seen bedsores worse than that one. Not on the ward where you worked. Your surgical ward didn't operate on semented patients over 90."

The young nurse quit in tears a few weeks later. She had goten off to a bad start and some could not really like her.

The more experienced nurse became a great friend to us, married an American, became a US citizen, and eventually became our excellent nurse manager.

Specializes in Flight, ER, Transport, ICU/Critical Care.

Don't start nothing. Won't be nothing.

If this does NOT directly involve YOUR license, or you are not witnessing a MANDATORY REPORTING SITUATION, or a CRIMINAL ACT - mind your own BUSINESS.

There is some good advice on this thread.

* I do not verify waste I do not directly witness.

* I do not/would not ever give out an access password.

This 'shaping experience' should have little impact on your decision on employment. This is hopefully an anomaly and deviation of safe practice and policy. Clearly, it's got not policy and invites bad juju and you would not practice this way. At least you recognize that it's wrong. I've got money that some new grads would not be as astute.

Onward.

Good luck going forward.

Head down, talk very selectively.

:angel:

While I am puzzled by so many responses that say to leave it alone, my opinion is different. Enough said. I don't want to set up and argument or get fussed at for my values. If I were you, I would not take this job if it is offered to you. My personal values and ethics would not allow me, in good faith, to knowingly work in a place that does not adhere to policies and procedures designed to properly manage controlled substances. It does not matter whether or not you "know" the employees there, this is not acceptable narcotic wasting procedure. I know there will be some here that will question whether I ever did something not in line with policies and procedures and I will admit, yes, but not when it came to medications or doing something so blatantly wrong. I never did anything that would bring my character into question or put a co-worker into a position of asking them to break protocol or knowingly do something wrong. I refuse to compromise my ethics and morals for anyone.

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
While I am puzzled by so many responses that say to leave it alone, my opinion is different. Enough said. I don't want to set up and argument or get fussed at for my values. If I were you, I would not take this job if it is offered to you. My personal values and ethics would not allow me, in good faith, to knowingly work in a place that does not adhere to policies and procedures designed to properly manage controlled substances. It does not matter whether or not you "know" the employees there, this is not acceptable narcotic wasting procedure. I know there will be some here that will question whether I ever did something not in line with policies and procedures and I will admit, yes, but not when it came to medications or doing something so blatantly wrong. I never did anything that would bring my character into question or put a co-worker into a position of asking them to break protocol or knowingly do something wrong. I refuse to compromise my ethics and morals for anyone.

And that's why you shadow. To help decide whether this workplace would be a good fit. If you were in OP's position, based on what you wrote, I would recommend you not accept this position. The OP was advised not to report the incident for the various reasons given. It will be up to him to decide if he can work in such a place and maintain his own integrity or if he should just decline the position, if it is offered.

Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.

I would really love an opportunity to shadow a job before I accept it. That is a great gift. My mission would be to observe carefully and unobtrusively. I would be making little mental notes of the positives and negatives.

This would be a negative. I would need to discern whether or not I could fit in at this place, because I do insist on actual witnessing.

But I would feel that it is not my place to report it. That would be an overstep.

You asked where I would draw the line, but I don't make ethical decisions that way. Every situation has to be decided according to the specifics. I would report something that was truly egregious and if I was absolutely sure that it happened and if it involved a vulnerable person that I was uniquely positioned to help. Patient abuse comes to mind. But then I also would not take the job.

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