Legal Issues in Critical Care Nursing

Excerpts from the Paper

Legal Issues in Critical Care Nursing
Introduction
The profession of critical care nursing is fraught with legal consequences and implications. This essay will discuss some of the most pertinent legal aspects of critical care nursing, address the challenges faced by nurses, and review the best practices for minimizing legal risk.
Overview of Legal Liability Issues
Morton’s (2000) overview of legal liability issues in critical care nursing discusses implications in administrative law, criminal law, and civil law. Administrative law requires nurses to be in compliance with professional regulations and statues (p. 97); criminal law requires nurses to carry out their duties without breaking state laws (p. 98); and civil law punishes nurses for...

.....Today, many nurses are ill-prepared to write incident reports, because they are not properly trained in the art of factual, concise writing and also because of the culture that encourages non-reporting of events. Thus, dedicating attention to this skill is an immediate way for the critical care nurse to reduce individual as well as institutional legal liability.
References
Iyer, P. and Aiken, T. (2001). Nursing malpractice. New
York: Lawyers & Judges Publishing Company
Jackson, M., Ignatavicius, D., and Case, B. (2006).
Conversations in critical thinking and clinical judgment. Boston: Jones & Bartlett
Morton, P.G., Hudak, C.M., Fontaine, D., & Gallo, B.M. (2004).
Critical care nursing. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins