Nurses's diagnosis

leixlip · Jul 24, 2006

Did you think the docs ran the hospitals??? Anyway, there is a diff between medical diagnosis and nursing diagnosis. Hang in there, the clouds will lift.

truern · Jul 24, 2006

I am a first semester RN student, I am reading my nursing fundamentals text and it looks like RN's do alot of the assessing, diagnosising?? I thought the docs did this? I know we are to carry out the docs orders and care for the patient whatever that entails, but I am suprised to find out we are expected to do our own assessing, planning, and diagnosis in some sense.?

You'll find when you study the nursing process that there are several components of the process: assessment, diagnosis (NURSING diagnosis), planning, implementation, and evaluation. You gather data and assess the patient, then you make a nursing diagnosis based on that data. Nursing diagnoses identify problems that nursing interventions can manage. For example, you have a 27 yo BM that sustained a crushing injury to his right hand. There was an open fracture with a traumatic amputation of the tip of the index finger. Under general anesthesia, he underwent a revision of the amputation and a close reduction, pinning, and I&D of the finger with an EBL of

After you've identified the nursing diagnoses, you plan your care of the patient..coming up with interventions for each of his problems. Then you IMPLEMENT your plan...in other words, you carry out the interventions. An intervention can be something as simple as "administer Demerol q 4 h prn for breakthru pain" or "reposition for comfort prn" to address his pain issue. An hour after you administered the Demerol you would go back to reassess his pain...that's the evaluation of your implementation :)

It all seems confusing at the beginning, but trust me..you'll have the hang of it in no time :)

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Jul 25, 2006

You'll find when you study the nursing process that there are several components of the process: assessment, diagnosis (NURSING diagnosis), planning, implementation, and evaluation. You gather data and assess the patient, then you make a nursing diagnosis based on that data. Nursing diagnoses identify problems that nursing interventions can manage. For example, you have a 27 yo BM that sustained a crushing injury to his right hand. There was an open fracture with a traumatic amputation of the tip of the index finger. Under general anesthesia, he underwent a revision of the amputation and a close reduction, pinning, and I&D of the finger with an EBL of
After you've identified the nursing diagnoses, you plan your care of the patient..coming up with interventions for each of his problems. Then you IMPLEMENT your plan...in other words, you carry out the interventions. An intervention can be something as simple as "administer Demerol q 4 h prn for breakthru pain" or "reposition for comfort prn" to address his pain issue. An hour after you administered the Demerol you would go back to reassess his pain...that's the evaluation of your implementation :)
It all seems confusing at the beginning, but trust me..you'll have the hang of it in no time :)

And if you're not RUNNING FOR THE HILLS after reading true's post, LOL, you're dedicated!

Hey, we can't scare the young'uns!! :)

truern · Jul 25, 2006

Was I too deep?? :lol2:

OP, trust me...they won't expect you to be an expert any time soon LOL Just take it slow and easy and I promise it will make sense eventually.

MIA-RN1, RN · Jul 26, 2006

a doctor's diagnosis regards the patient's medical condition.

A nurse's diagnosis regards the patient's response to said condition.

So a doctor would diagnose, say, kidney failure, and implement proper medical treatment--meds, whatever.

A nurse would use the diagnosis Fluid Volume Deficit to plan nursing care. So the nurse would administer the meds, but then use the scope of nursing practice to also help the patient (monitor the fluid intake/output, etc etc)

Hope that makes sense.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 29, 2006

coopergrrlrn said it right on point.

a doctor's diagnosis regards the patient's medical condition.
a nurse's diagnosis regards the patient's response to said condition.

you should be posting on the general nursing student discussion forum on allnurses which is here https://allnurses.com/forums/f50/ i answer questions about nursing diagnosis and careplans on the nursing student assistance forum whenever i see them. if you go there, you'll see examples of these things. https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/